Wildcats on the Hunt

There has truly been madness in March this year as there’s been upset after upset. There is not a single unraveled bracket in the world at this moment as Virginia and Xavier are the biggest fish in the pond to be scratched off the ticket to the dance. Even though the concentration of talent in the NCAA has shown promise in most of the contests in the tournament, one team has continued to show promise for the claiming the title. The Wildcats of Villanova have continued to coast through it’s post season match ups.

The Big East has been one of the best conferences in college basketball for quite some time, but it matters most, what happens when a team of this pedigree gets to Big Dance. The Wildcats are the reigning champions oof the previous season and have a combined record of 28-4, but it’s only a symptom of the culture that Jay Wright has been building this whole time. A pretty tight net of upperclassmen players head the charge for this championship run and the scoring is spread out in score sheets with Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges averaging 18+ points per game, but one player that is standing out is Donte Divencenzo, known as the best player to come out of Delaware in a very long time.

Divencenzo averaged 13.1 points this season, but he has become a huge star in this tournament for his three point shooting and individual defense. In the game against Alabama he hit 5 of 11 three pointers, most of which were contested. The Wildcats defense suffocated the Tide with 15 turnovers and forced Alabama’s lottery pick point-guard to cough it up 5 of those times. Even though Bridges had 23 points, it was Divencenzo’s back breaking three pointers that nailed the coffin on Alabama’s Sweet 16 hopes as they rallied to a 81-58 victory . The Wildcats have dominated in the tournament, but there’s still four games to go in order to capture the title for the second time in the row.

With a matchup coming on Friday against a hungry West Virginia team, the Cats don’t show any sign of slowing down as they did not last year. This year, Villanova brought back talent in Brunson and Bridges that could have easily been apart of the 2017 NBA Draft, but instead we have a repeat situation of a roster along with some firepower added to the bench. This team is capable of retaining the Championship again this year as they look to be the most consistent team in the Tournament at this present moment with two blow-out wins. The only standing between this team and an even higher title of immortality is their ability to handle the situation against a hyped West Virginia Musketeer team who also has also had a great tournament thus far with two blow-outs against Murray State and Marshall. This will be a test to see how bad the Cats want it, but it’s almost insane to think that Jay Wright has not been in his team’s ear about complacency and not respecting an opponent because of who they faced.