First look at Villanova

#8 George Mason vs #9 Villanova - East Region - Cleveland, OH. Friday 2:10 pm on TNT (Gus Johnson/Elmore)


First some video from last nights selection show viewing at the JC from the Washington Post:

The Patriots have drawn Villanova in their first round (technically 2nd round I guess) game in the NCAA tournament.  Sure we can all argue about being in what most would say is the toughest region and the reward for beating Villanova ends up having to face the number 1 overall seed in Ohio State. But let's take this one game at time.  Because let's face it at the beginning of the season if you had told us this team would be the higher seed in their first NCAA tournament game as an at-large we all would have called you crazy.  We have watched this Patriot team really develop into something special this season and I'm glad they were rewarded for their impressive regular season.  

When talking about Villanova it's hard for most fans to forget last season in Puerto Rico. Mason had built a 13 point lead but fell short in the final seconds off a three-pointer from then freshman Isaiah Armwood who had not yet taken a shot in the game prior to that.  The media in Philadelphia is already saying this is not going to be an easy game for the Wildcats, who enter the NCAA tournament on a five game losing streak and have lost 10 of their last 15. Their last win came in OT against Big East bottom feeder DePaul. Earlier in the season Villanova was rolling and won 16 of their first 17 games, at one point they were ranked 6th in the nation.  

The NCAA tournament gives Villanova a chance to prove they are worthy and it's always a chance for teams to start fresh.  The Wildcats still have a ton of talent and they play in the most stacked conference in Division I basketball.  Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes are both healthy now and can score in bunches. Overall the team has been banged up all season and in their last game center 6'10" Mouphtaou Yarou took a hard fall and needed stitches on his cheek and was seen later with ice wrapped around his ribs.  The team has been sloppy lately, squandering leads in the second half, having trouble in-bounding the ball, and going on long scoring droughts.

Back to that game last season in Puerto Rico, if you remember Larranaga created mismatches that gave Villanova fits for most of the game. He opened up opportunities for Luke Hancock, Ryan Pearson, and Kevin Foster and exploited a lot of the Wildcats holes on defense.  In the end the Patriots were dominated on the boards and yielded a ton of offensive rebounds.  This year's Mason squad knows the important of making the efforts on the glass and it will no doubt be a priority in this game.  

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