Nova
- Thread starter boilerpete1
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It's certainly possible they are not as good as the preseason hype but one "close" game to a blah team doesn't prove that. Hopefully they stay top 5 or 10 all year and makes our home loss more palatable.
WMU isn't as bad as many people are claiming. They were an NCAA team and conference champ two years ago with a record of 23-10. This is a program, from 2003 to 2014, was 224 - 169. This isn't a terrible program and one that has done some good work over the last decade or so. Not surprising that they played well and not surprising that Nova' overlooked them. Good teaching points for Jay Wright that every night they need to bring their best game forward.
Looks like one of Villanova's challenges this year will definitely be on the boards....not surprisingly with being perimeter oriented and not having Spellman available. Paschall, who fouled out in the Purdue game, had a nice game for them off the bench.
I didn't watch the game, but it can be hard to get up for a solid opponent like this following a huge road win at Purdue. Meanwhile, WMU comes in highly motivated with no pressure. There's nothing wrong with an 11 point win in these circumstances.
By the way, I though Nova played a great game against us. They executed, almost flawlessly, for the entire game. I was impressed with their athletes, and their skill at playing together. Kudos to them for coming into Mackey and beating a good Purdue team.
I mostly agree, except that their post defense against Haas down the stretch was severely lacking.
Yeah well, my perimeter defense against Everette Stephens at the Co-rec in 1987 was severely lacking too. I think there was a reason for that as well.
If I remember correctly they stopped doubling the post with a lead in the last couple minutes. It left their center in an impossible situation but they only gave up twos and never missed a free throw. Notice they did not foul Haas in the last minute either. If we were going to score it was going to be two. Unfortunately it worked. I'm not saying wright wanted to give up post buckets but he clearly did not want to have any home team three point heroics take the lead from him.
Very funny, but there were plays where no defense was played against Haas. He had one dunk where nobody was within three feet of him.
Jay Wright was laughing about their post defense on an interview with Dakitch earlier this week. It definitely was not an area where he thought that they executed well.
This is to take nothing away from Haas. He was a beast. Wright had a ton of respect for Haas and Swanigan, but also for the way that Purdue fed the post.
Nova is a top 5/10 team. As others have said it's difficult to get up for, what should be, an easy win after playing in an environment like Mackey. They also looked like they had tired legs as they were front rimming most of their outside shots. That one possession loss will still look great at the end of the season.
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