Seth Vigdor
The Villanova Wildcats are now one win away from winning the National Championship in College Basketball. On Saturday night, they absolutely obliterated Buddy Hield and the Oklahoma Sooners 95-51. The game started as a close one, as there were eleven lead changes early on. But, the game would end as the most lopsided Final Four result ever. The Wildcats shot an absolutely insane 71.4% from the field and 61.1% from three-point range. Are you kidding me? They were En Fuego in Houston! Some of the Twitter reactions to this game were absolutely classic.
In the first half, the Wildcats took a 14-point lead into the locker room after shooting 67% from the field and 55% from beyond the arc. Coming into the game there was all kinds of talk from the Nova haters that the Sooners’ superstar Buddy Hield would torch the Wildcats. That wasn’t the case though. As the Cats showed in their last game against the Kansas Jayhawks, their defense is pretty damn good. They put different defenders on Hield all night and flustered the heck out of him. Hield was largely a non-factor in the Final Four, finishing with nine points on 4-for-12 shooting.
Hield had the following to say after the game courtesy of CBS Sports.
“Just credit them, what they was doing. Made it tough on me. Throwing a bunch of bodies at me. Just couldn’t get it going.”
Villanova made history left and right on Saturday night.
Highest FG% in #FinalFour history
Championship: 79%, Villanova vs Georgetown, 1985
Semi: 71%, Villanova tonight pic.twitter.com/6aIpeRTBaP— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) April 3, 2016
Nova made big-time plays all night long like these two.
Mikal Bridges gap between floor and rim. https://t.co/HJc9VtCH0e #FinalFour
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) April 2, 2016
Mikal Bridges with the vicious slam! #FinalFourhttps://t.co/yTV6KA4JY6
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) April 2, 2016
Josh Hart led the way for the Wildcats with 23 points (10-12 FG), to go along with eight rebounds and four assists. Kris Jenkins also added 18 points for Villanova, which avenged a 23-point loss to the Sooners back on Dec. 7. Nova coach Jay Wright spoke after the game and had the following to say, courtesy of the New York Post.
“That I think was a big part of this game, when you’re talking about 18- to 22-year-old kids, they beat us by 23, they just did to us what we did. If we had to play them again tomorrow, it would be a lot different. I think we had an advantage having gotten beaten pretty bad earlier in the year.”
Josh Hart spoke about the advantage of having the teammates that he has via KSNT.com.
“I wouldn’t say it’s easy, but when you have guys like (teammates) you can go off any night. When they’re aggressive, it helps me. The driving lanes, able to get a couple of shots to fall, when that happens, able to kick out and get some guys some shots.”
Villanova will take on the big and bad Roy Williams led North Carolina Tar Heels in the national championship game on Monday night. Tip-off is at 9:18 p.m. The top-seeded Tar Heels beat 10-seed Syracuse 83-66 on Saturday night in a national semifinal for their 10th straight win. The Tar Heels (33-6) last won it all in 2009 and Villanova’s only title came in 1985.
ESPN provided one interesting stat for the Nova-UNC battle.
Villanova is 1-5 against UNC all-time in the tournament.
The one win? That magical 1985 run. pic.twitter.com/SSXkiedqTI
— ESPN (@espn) April 3, 2016
Go Nova, Beat UNC!