Villanova’s Veteran Subs Provide a Defensive Boost

Villanova head coach Kevin Willard substituted his starting five off the court at the under 16 minute media timeout in the first half of the Wildcats’ 90-63 win over the Penn Quakers in the Big 5 Classic championship game on Saturday, Dec. 6.

Willard said he wanted to give his team, a young lineup with two freshmen and a sophomore, a break after six minutes of fast-paced basketball. Luckily for Willard, he has experienced reserves like graduate guard Devin Askew and even sophomore Malachi Palmer, who played under him at Maryland last season and understands his expectations, ready to pick up the slack.

“That’s the nice thing about having a guy like Devin coming off the bench, Malachi coming off the bench,” Willard said. “They’re older, they’re more physical, they’re a different look than Acaden [Lewis] and Bryce [Lindsay]. So when they come on, we always get better defensively.”

Penn made 11 threes on 22 attempts, but Villanova held them to a 35.1 percent rate from two-point range. Once the threes stopped falling — Penn tied the game 27-27 late in the first half — Villanova managed to run away with it. 13 of those three-point tries came in the first 15 minutes, and Penn head coach Fran McCaffery said the dramatic change in shot selection resulted from the shots the Quakers had available, indicating that Villanova adjusted to take away the three.

Quakers’ forward TJ Power credited the Wildcats for their physicality.

“They were bumping us off our drives a little bit, being physical defenders,” Power said. “That’s something that we’re going to have to scout and work on, getting to our spots and being more aggressive. But we also can’t let drop coverage discourage us from trying to get to the paint.”

Return to Health

For the first time this season the Wildcats didn’t have a pregame injury report. All of their 14 players (barring redshirt candidate Niko Onyekwere) were, in theory, available to play. Willard said that their ability to practice together is allowing his substitute to gel on offense too.

“I think as that unit has been able to practice together, they’ve gotten better offensively. The biggest issue we had with those guys was Dev was out for two months, Malcolm [Flaggs] was out, Zion [Stanford] was out for a month and a half,” Willard said. “Those guys didn’t get to practice that much together. Defensively I always had a lot of confidence but I think they’re getting confidence a little offensively.”