After polar opposite performances on the first two Mondays of the season, Villanova was hoping the pendulum would swing back the other way Friday against Maryland. It did, as the Wildcats beat Maryland 57-40 in a wire-to-wire win.
‘Nova blitzed the Terrapins right out of the gate, hitting consecutive threes to open the game and jumping out to an 8-0 lead. The lead was in double figures before five minutes had elapsed, and it kept growing from there. By the time the halftime buzzer sounded, Villanova had its largest lead of the game at 24.
“I was really proud of the way our guys competed, especially to start the game,” Kyle Neptune said. “That first five or six minutes was awesome to watch. The way we set the tone, I thought it was kinda what led to the victory.”
After a game against Penn in which Villanova largely failed to live up to the tenets of the program, the Wildcats answered any lingering questions regarding their understanding of and commitment to those tenets. It took all of seven seconds for the first instance of a Wildcat hitting the floor to occur. The team brought the energy and intensity that has come to be expected of Villanova teams, and the ‘Cats played excellent defense, moving their feet and cutting off penetration. The swarming defense absolutely smothered Maryland, who hit just one of its first nine shots and three of its first 14. By halftime, the Terrapins were shooting just 4-of-27 (15%) and had scored just 15 points.
‘Nova was just as good offensively, hitting 61.9% overall and 54.5% from three. Seven Wildcats scored.
The ‘Cats continued the strong play to start the second half, scoring the period’s first seven points to build the lead to 31. The lead peaked at 32 (49-17) with 12:31 to play.
It was then that Villanova’s offense hit a wall, going nearly 12 minutes without a field goal. The Wildcats scored just eight points over the final 12 minutes, allowing Maryland to trim 15 points off the lead and turn an absolute rout into “just” a sound beating. The shot selection wasn’t quite as good and, more importantly, Villanova got sloppy with the ball, committing 11 second-half turnovers.
The easiest explanation is that ‘Nova simply took its foot off the gas and/or lost a bit of focus in a game that was well in hand. And that may have had something to do with it. But coach Neptune had a different theory.
“I think Maryland, they’re an extremely tough team,” Neptune said. “Their style is hard to play against. They’re constantly attacking you defensively, they keep you off balance, so I think that had a lot to do with it.”
Even with the shaky second-half offense, Villanova cruised to victory in truly dominant fashion. More importantly, the ‘Cats were much closer to playing 40 minutes of Villanova Basketball.
“I loved the first 20,” Neptune said. “Just the way our guys competed. We’re still a work in progress. We can still get a lot better.”
Villanova will look to build on Friday’s performance and take the next step towards getting better on Wednesday when it opens the Battle 4 Atlantis against Texas Tech.
