No longer No. 1, Villanova prepares for DePaul
For the first time in three weeks, Villanova took to the basketball court Monday for practice at the Pavilion no longer the nation's No. 1 team. There was maybe a shrug or two, but no tears.
For the first time in three weeks, Villanova took to the basketball court Monday for practice at the Pavilion no longer the nation's No. 1 team. There was maybe a shrug or two, but no tears.
The Wildcats (25-4, 14-2 Big East) yielded the top spot to Kansas in both the Associated Press poll of media members and the USA Today poll of coaches, dipping to No. 3 and No. 2, respectively, after a week that saw them lose, 90-83, at Xavier.
Still, life went on.
"It's not something that we were walking around like, 'Yeah, we're the No. 1 team in the country,' " junior guard Josh Hart said. "Obviously it's nice to be, we would like to be. But it doesn't really matter right now. We don't really care for it. If we keep getting better and we end up being the No. 1 team at the end of the year, that's what really matters."
Coincidentally, three weeks after taking on DePaul in suburban Chicago in their first game at No. 1, the Wildcats will be taking on the Blue Demons (9-19, 3-13) on Tuesday night at the Pavilion in their first game out of the penthouse.
Villanova coach Jay Wright said the disappointment was not in losing the No. 1 ranking but playing as poorly as the Wildcats did in the loss at Xavier.
"They beat us in a lot of areas and that's what we're disappointed in," he said. "But we had to respond and we did, and I thought we did a good job against Marquette [an 89-79 victory]. We have to keep getting better. The number of our ranking never has been something that inspires us. It's getting better that inspires us, and I think we're getting back on that track."
The Wildcats did turn out to be No. 1 at something. Xavier's loss Sunday at Seton Hall means the Cats will be the top seed in next week's Big East Conference tournament because they hold the tiebreaker over the Musketeers. A win over DePaul will give them their third straight outright Big East title.
The focus for Villanova against the Blue Demons will be about improvement at the defensive end. The Cats lead the Big East in points allowed (63.1) and field goal percentage defense (39.3), but in their last two games, the respective numbers are 84.5 points per game and 50.9 percent shooting.
Wright said the Wildcats concentrated Monday on one-on-one defense, an area where they may have slipped because of the desire to keep bodies fresh toward the end of a long regular season.
"I told the guys that I took the responsibility that maybe in practice, we didn't work on the fundamentals of one-on-one defense enough," he said. "We got back to it today. I really liked what we did. But it doesn't matter until we do it" Tuesday night.