By PAUL GOTHAM
BROOKLYN — When Jay Wright looks at video of the UNC-Asheville Bulldogs, he’s reminded of a team from the past, and the memory doesn’t sit well with the Villanova Wildcats coach.
“They’re like the old Louisville teams with Denny Crum, where everybody is 6-5, 6-6 and everybody can switch everything,” said Wright said recalling the Louisville teams which won two national championships in the 8os. “Whatever three-point shooter gets open, every guy on their team can guard him, and they do a great job of it. That’s what Denny Crum’s team used to do with all those 6’6″ guys. They switched everything.”
Jeff Hall, Billy Thompson and Milt Wagner meet Sam Hughes, Kevin Vannatta and Will Weeks.
The No. 15-seed Bulldogs, from the Big South Conference, lead the nation holding opposing shooters to 28.4 percent from behind the three-point arc. UNC-Asheville also collects 9.3 steals per game (fourth in the nation). No. 2-seed Villanova gets 33.4 percent of their point production from long range.
“If they get their five man on your point guard, he can guard them, and he can get out,” Wright added. “So there’s nobody on the floor that they can’t guard.
“The three-point shot wasn’t as impactful then,” Wright said referring to Louisville. “Now it is, and they’re (UNC-Asheville) using that same size to take away your three. It’s smart. They do it really well. And it’s easier said than done. You’ve got to teach your guys how to do it, but they do it well.”
Led by freshmen Dylan Smith (13.5 ppg) and Duane Sutton (12 ppg/7.8 rpg), Asheville (22-11/12-6) finished 7-6 in games decided by single digits during the regular season of conference play before taking three games in the Big South tournament by an average margin of 17 points.
“We were talking about the fact that we had played in so many close games, not always coming out on the right side, but played in a lot of close games nonetheless,” UNC-Asheville coach Nick McDevitt. “We felt like we would be more comfortable than our opponent just because of how many of those games were so close for us. So hopefully tomorrow, it’s still close at that last media and see what happens over the last three, four minutes.”
The Bulldogs stumbled early in a four-point loss at Tennessee, fell hard losing by 28 to Texas A&M, but recovered to beat Villanova’s Big East rival, Georgetown, on the road 79-73.
“They just had so much size at every position, that that gave us a little bit of trouble earlier in the season,” McDevitt said of the game against A&M. “I also thought that our young players were still playing young at that point in the season.
“When you’re playing Dwayne Sutton, Dylan Smith, some of our freshmen, 30-some minutes a game for an entire year, at this point in the season anyway, the hope is they’re starting to play like sophomores. I just thought at that point in the year we were still playing inexperienced.”
The Bulldogs limited to Georgetown to 4-of-22 shooting from long range and forced 11 turnovers in a 79-73 win on December 19th. Villanova swept Georgetown in Big East play.
“Georgetown stuck around with Villanova for most of the game,” Sutton said. “That suits us well. It helps us mentally. We can use our length to disrupt the passing lanes and the threes. They shoot a lot of threes. That kinda goes to our advantage.”
McDevitt also noted a late-season adjustment in his team’s defense.
“We’ve been pretty good lately in the second half of the season in our 1-3-1 gap defense. We, at that point in the season, we’re still working on it in practice and not very good at it in games. So being able to use that and keep teams off balance has been something that’s helped us later in the year.”
Villanova is led by Josh Hart (15.5 ppg/6.9 rpg), Kris Jenkins (13.3 ppg) and Ryan Arcidiacono (11.9 ppg/4.4 apg).
Villanova and UNC-Asheville will tip off at 12:40 p.m. Friday.
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