Villanova's toughness produces a Final Four berth

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - When you look at the impeccably dressed Jay Wright on the Villanova sideline, one word that doesn't enter into your list of descriptions is "ugly."

Yet Wright's players take absolute glee in describing their style of play as ugly. When things got tense Saturday night in the NCAA South Regional championship against No. 1 seed Kansas, the Wildcats turned up the ugly meter and propelled themselves to the Final Four in Houston.

"If we buckled down on defense," junior swingman Josh Hart said after 'Nova's 64-59 victory over the Jayhawks at the KFC Yum! Center, "and we made it ugly - diving on the floor, taking charges, doing the little things this program is built on - we knew we were going to be in the game."

That all comes under the heading of toughness. The second-seeded Wildcats (33-5), who tied the program record for victories in a season, exhibited that quality after a shaky first four minutes, and again after the Jayhawks (33-5) recovered from a nine-point first-half deficit to go up by five midway through the second half.

"We wanted to make it ugly," said senior guard Ryan Arcidiacono. "We knew we weren't shooting the ball well. But the backbone of our program is just defend and rebound and play hard and together. I think we did that. We started off a little slow, but I would say the last 35 minutes or so of the game is where we really turned it up and made it an ugly street fight."

The best examples of the Villanova grit came in the final 4 minutes, 28 seconds, after redshirt freshman Mikal Bridges hit what would be his team's final field goal of the game. The Wildcats hit eight straight free throws in the last 33.1 seconds and blew up Kansas' last possession when Arcidiacono knocked the ball away from Jayhawks point guard Frank Mason III. Bridges dove on it and called timeout.

The Cats wrapped up their scoring after the Bridges steal - his fifth of the game - with two free throws from freshman Jalen Brunson. Hart stole the ensuing inbounds pass, the Jayhawks' 16th and final turnover of the game, and it was over.

The Wildcats needed a strong defensive effort because their offense, which shot nearly 60 percent in the first three NCAA games and knocked down 33 three-point baskets, struggled against the Jayhawks. They hit just 40.4 percent of their field-goal attempts, with four threes in 18 tries.

Wright got Villanova to its fifth Final Four and his second. He is the third coach of a Big Five team to take his team to the national semifinals twice, joining Temple's Harry Litwack (1956, 1958) and La Salle's Ken Loeffler (1954, 1955).

Now that they're there, the Wildcats will face Oklahoma (29-7), the West Regional champ and the team that dealt them their worst defeat of the season, 78-55, in Hawaii on Dec. 7, the 75th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Playing its eighth game of the season, Villanova shot less than 32 percent, made just 4 of 32 three-point attempts, and gave up 14 baskets from beyond the arc to the Sooners. Reflecting Saturday night, Wright said Oklahoma "taught us a lesson, helped us a lot.

"I'd rather not play them because they're so good," he said. "I do think it's going to help our focus in terms of dealing with distractions because players don't want to be embarrassed. They know [the Sooners] can embarrass us. If they're drilling threes, there's nothing you can do if you let them get it going like that. So I think our guys will be really dialed in."

Oklahoma's Buddy Hield, who averages 25.4 points per game, will be the first player to make the Final Four averaging at least 25 points since 1990. He has 146 threes this season, slightly more than four per game.

jjuliano@phillynews.com

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