11 team in college basketball at the start of the 2015-16 season with high hopes in the Big East. On Friday night, the Wildcats were at home to take on the East Tennessee State Buccaneers in a game that no one expected to be close.
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“Our guys wanted to play well but they got overwhelmed by a vastly superior team”, Forbes said.
It was actually the Buccaneers who had the upper hand early on as they claimed a 9-4 lead in the first 4:25 of action before a sellout crowd of 6,500 at the Pavilion.
When the Buccaneers’ T.J. Cromer finally sank a free throw to snap the skid, Villanova had built itself a 35-11 lead. “We started turning it over and they got easy baskets, that’s a bad recipe on the road”. DiVincenzo had just five points, but his only three started the 24-0 run, and he also grabbed five rebounds in just 19 minutes.
That enabled Villanova to take a 49-27 halftime lead. Coming off of the bench, the sophomore finished with 16 points, five rebounds and an assist to go with 5-11 shooting from the field and 3-8 shooting from long-range. “And then bam! They go on a 24-0 run and it’s over”.
“It starts with defense”, explained junior Kris Jenkins, who celebrated his birthday with a game-high 17 points. Villanova would take its first lead of the game on a Mikal Bridges layup for a 11-9 lead, then the Buccaneers would tie the game at 11 heading into first media timeout at 15:04 of 1st half. While 7-0 center Peter Jurkin gives ETSU a few much-needed size, he averages only eight minutes, leaving 6-7 Isaac Banks as the only regular that stands taller than 6-4.ABOUT VILLANOVA (2-0): After serving as an offensive spark off the bench in his first two seasons with the Wildcats, Josh Hart (14.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, two steals) has emerged as the primary scoring option in the backcourt thus far. The team hit 14 of 34 3-pointers for 41 percent. “It’s an offensive depth this year, where last year I thought we had a defensive depth, because JayVaughn Pinkston was so good defensively and Darrun Hilliard was so good defensively and Dylan was so good defensively that we could mix in Kris, Josh… those guys would bring us offense”.
“We just didn’t defend them”, Forbes said. “They’re really good. They can really shoot the ball”.
While not an elimination event, the game was a scheduled part of the NIT Season Tipoff. “Focus on defense and rebounding and everything else will follow”. We have a lot of good shooters. “It is a challenge that we will have all season and we look forward to taking on that challenge”.
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“Defense is always our No. 1 priority”, said Jenkins. Jay Wright’s team has won its first three games of the season in each of its last nine years. The Wildcats didn’t want to get into a slugfest with ETSU, which entered the game having scored at least 100 points in its first three games, including an exhibition.
