Villanova vs. Duke Sweet 16 Game: You Better Be Watching

Where will you be at 9:57 p.m. tonight?  I know where you should be!  Planted firmly in front of your TV with the dial tuned to CBS waiting eagerly for the Villanova – Duke game.

I know many of you are Sixers fans, Eagles fans and Phillies fans.  But I also know you are basketball fans and sports fans.  Well, THE Philly sports event of the night is the Sweet 16 match-up between the Wildcats and the Blue Devils.  So let’s get into it…

The Match Up

Duke

I watch a ton of ACC play being a UNC fan so I have seen my fair share of Duke games.  I don’t like them obviously because they are like Satan to UNC fans.  But I respect them and their coach.  They are a very strong team that will present Nova with a number of problems.

Duke is a decent, not great three-point shooting team like most people think.  What they do is shoot a ton of them (20.5 per game) and when allowed to shoot uncontested three, they get hot and build leads in a hurry.  Now I hear that Villanova doesn’t guard the three very well so I went searching for the numbers.  They allow 33.1% from three which is pretty good.  If they can keep Duke around that number, they will be in good position to win tonight.

What makes Duke really good,and how they end up pulling away from teams, is their pressure defense in the half court.  Because they are rather small and lack a true shot blocker (Henderson is very good in help situations), they compensate with very strong, and more importantly sound, perimeter defense.  They force turnovers by having active hands, smart defensive reads and wearing down opponents by not having lapses defensively.  This one of my biggest concerns going into the game tonight,and one player can ease my mind with it.

One match-up I think Duke has an advantage is with Scheyer and his size at guard.  Ideally you want a quicker player on him to put pressure on him.  But that would mean Reynolds, and I can easily see Duke countering that by posting him up.  And that is almost a certainty when Reynolds and Fisher are on the court at the same time.  Not to mention he can shoot up over the top from the perimeter as well.  I am really looking forward to seeing how Jay Wright handles this.

Villanova

Pete and I love Nova.  So we obviously have our own bias.  Nova is actually just like Duke.  They love to shoot the three (18.2 attempts per game), and their offensive is extremely perimeter-oriented lead by Scottie Reynolds and Corey Fisher.  The difference compared to Duke is Nova has Dante Cunningham who has turned himself into a good low-post scorer.  Over his 4 years he has developed good footwork with his back to the basket, a very nice face-up game where his mid-range jumper is deadly and overall is a polished senior big man.

It’s interesting in that Nova actually doesn’t start two of its best players.  The Corey’s (Fisher and Stokes) will play at least 25 minutes a piece off the bench.  Fisher is a nice player; he is probably our favorite Nova player, and we think he will be a stud next season.  Especially if he continues to work on his perimeter shot which has been very good as of late.  Stokes is a flat out sniper.  The Sophomore shoots 42.8% from three, has NBA range and can get his shot off quickly. 68% of his shots are threes.

Keys to the Game for Nova

• Scottie Reynolds and Turnovers – This is a major, major, major key for tonight’s game.  You will hear the ESPN guys talk about Reynolds’ scoring as the key.  It is, and it isn’t.  When he is scoring Nova’s offense is as potent as it gets.  But Nova has enough quality offensive players to win games when Scottie doesn’t score a ton as well, as evidenced by the first two NCAA tournament games where he’s only scored 19 points on 6-16 shooting.  What they won’t be able to overcome are bad decisions and a lot of turnovers from him.  Reynolds averages 2.7 turnovers per game.  But in Nova’s 7 losses this season he has averaged 4.57 turnovers per game.  This point is amplified knowing the type of pressure Duke will put on him all game.
• Corey Fisher and Penetration – I call this the Ty Lawson factor.  Duke has had worlds of trouble beating UNC mainly because they can’t seem to stop Ty Lawson from cutting up their defense both in transition and in the half court.  Texas came back on Duke in the previous round by using a spread offense and dribble penetration.  They went 4 low or pick-and-roll at the top of the key with Varez Ward, and Duke couldn’t stop it.  That is exactly the role we need Corey Fisher to play tonight.  Jon Scheyer is a smart defender, but he is still slow defensively.  Nova will need to take advantage him with their quicker ball-handlers.  Also, using Cunningham and Fisher/Reynolds in the pick-and-roll at the top of the key with Stokes and Anderson spotting up should be a vital part of Nova’s offense tonight.  Force Duke to decide whether to help off shooters or give up driving lanes.
• Dante Cunningham, Points in the Paint and Duke Foul Trouble – Duke has no one that can handle Cunningham on the block.  He is stronger than Singler so anytime they are matched up the ball needs to be inside with Dante.  Singler has the propensity to foul good offensive bigs because he is weak defensively.  Getting him out of the game with fouls would kill Duke as they lack offensive depth.  I also can’t see Zoubek playing much because I can’t see who he will guard on Nova’s roster.  They don’t play a center at all so he will be beat with quickness anytime he is on the floor. And Nova plays good team defense against teams with bigger offensive players.  Finally if it comes down to a match up of Cunningham vs. Lance Thomas, Nova clearly wins that battle.
• Multiple, Fresh Defenders on Henderson - Gerald has been on fire for like two months now.  He has finally gotten (been allowed to be) more aggressive on offense, and he has proven he can take over games.  Nova will probably rotate three different defenders on him throughout the night to try and keep him in check.  Henderson is a game changer, and I am really looking forward to Corey Stokes taking it as a personal challenge to stop him.

Sixers Angle

As far as the Sixers are concerned, if you a looking for shooters, there will be three in this game to watch.  Corey Stokes, Jon Scheyer and Kyle Singler.  If you are looking for a point guard, pay very close attention to Corey Fisher (at least another year away from the draft).

Prediction

My bias is with Nova.  And I back that up by having them on my bracket winning this game as well.  I think it will be a close game decided by a few plays and which team can turn the other over more leading to easy transition baskets.

Nova is coming off a game against UCLA which Jay Wright said was their best 2 halves of basketball all season so you gotta like the way Nova is playing right now and the confidence they will bring into this game.  Furthermore, Nova has seen equal and better perimeter defense than what they will face tonight against Duke.  UCLA’s guards were quicker and better defensively than Duke’s, and Nova killed them with relative ease.  And don’t forget they faced Louisville’s full court man-to-man, in-your-ass pressure defense twice this season.  Back in January losing by 1 because of terrible late game free throw shooting and in the Big East tournament because of 23 turnovers and terrible overall shooting.  So they have seen pressure defense recently that should prepare them for this game.  I look for Nova to carry their strong play against UCLA into tonight’s game culminating in a HUGE win.

This is the game of the night, you better be watching every second of it.

Feel free to comment during and after the game with your thoughts.

March 26, 2009