Jermaine Samuels may not be scoring, but he’s doing everything else for Villanova

Jermaine Samuels is one of Villanova’s young players who can do multiple things on the court as well as score, as evidenced by his 15-point performance off the bench that helped the Wildcats gain a hard-fought victory last month over Temple.

Scoring, however, has taken a back seat lately for the 6-foot-7 sophomore, who has started the last four games as the Cats’ man in the post. He made his only field-goal attempt against Butler and missed his only attempt against Seton Hall, a game in which the Villanova faithful were literally begging him to shoot in the second half.

But one look at his line against the Pirates – 26½ minutes, four points (all on free throws), three offensive rebounds, three assists, three steals, two blocked shots – showed how much his versatile play helped his team.

“It makes me feel good because it means I’m helping my teammates and I’m doing what the coaching staff wants me to do,” Samuels said Tuesday before the 14th-ranked Wildcats (16-4, 7-0 Big East) headed for the airport and a flight to frigid Chicago for Wednesday night’s game against DePaul (11-8, 3-5).

“If I can go out and do that every game and be consistent with it and contribute like that, then I know I’m doing my job with this team. That’s what I am as a player and everything else will come as I get better at basketball. But as of right now, that’s what I like doing.”

Wildcats coach Jay Wright said he tried to run plays to get Samuels open for a shot on Sunday but that he couldn’t get open. He’s more than happy with how Samuels performed.

“He’s doing a lot of what we ask him to do,” he said. “We know he can score. We have a lot of other shooters, and what he’s doing for us is really valuable. He’s playing in the post, he’s screening, he’s offensive rebounding. So his scoring would be icing on the cake right now, and we’re working on it.”

Samuels is averaging 5.2 points and 4.1 rebounds in all games and 6.3 points and 3.8 rebounds against Big East competition. His best conference game came at Creighton -- 13 points, six rebounds and some clutch free-throw shooting late in the Cats’ 90-78 win.

Samuels, who insisted he did not hear the fans urging him to shoot Sunday, said he’s confident in his offense and that scoring “could come at any time.

“But as of now,” he added, “I’m more focused on making plays for my teammates.”

Nova Notes

Villanova defeated DePaul, 73-68, in its Big East opener on Jan. 2 at Finneran Pavilion even though it led for just eight minutes and lost the rebounding battle 36-24, something Wright called “an eye-opener.” The Cats, winners of eight straight, have outrebounded their last five opponents and Wright credited “the overall commitment every day in practice to boxing out, to securing the ball with two hands, to everybody thinking as a rebounder.”

The temperature was in single digits the last time the Wildcats visited Chicago, but that’s far warmer than what is coming on Wednesday: a “high” of 14 degrees below zero with the wind chill factor rising from 48 below to 40 below as the day goes on. “I always say it’s always freezing when we go to Chicago,” Wright said. “It’s always been the coldest spot. But it’s never been this cold. I didn’t go outside before when we went to Chicago, so I can’t imagine what this is going to be like.”