The No. 9 UConn men’s basketball team (12-3, 4-0 Big East) will travel to the Finneran Pavilion for the first time since Jan. 3, 1995 (outside of a COVID-19-shortened 2020-21 season with no fans), to face the Villanova Wildcats (10-5, 3-1 Big East) on Wednesday evening.
“I’m sure it’s going to be a similar feel that people have when they come play at Gampel [Pavilion] as opposed to XL [Center],” UConn head coach Dan Hurley said on a Zoom call late Tuesday afternoon.
The Huskies have won their first four Big East games for the first time since the 2001-02 season. It is a remarkable stat considering the program has hoisted five national titles, gone to six Final Fours, won three Big East Tournaments and four Big East regular season titles since that season.
Two of the Big East’s worst-rated defenses in terms of efficiency will face off in an opportunity for a fourth Quad 1 win for UConn. Villanova has been strong at defending shots inside the arc, with Big East opponents shooting 46.2% on 2-pointers.
“Villanova––watched them on film––they’re clearly an NCAA [Tournament] team,” Hurley said. “They’ll have a chance to make up for the Columbia loss early in the season and they’re going to have to have a great Big East season.”
On the other hand, these two Big East rivals each boast top 10 offenses in terms of efficiency. According to KenPom, the Wildcats rank No. 7 in offensive efficiency.
What could become trouble for the Huskies is Villanova’s threatening 3-point shooting, which ranks second in the country behind Bradley at 41.5%. Along with that, the Wildcats are strong when it comes to their effective field goal percentage, which ranks sixth in the country at 58.6%.
“Offensively, they’re one of the hardest teams to guard, if not the hardest team we’ll guard the whole year,” Hurley said. “Obviously, with our issues we’ve had defensively, we’ve got to be prepared with a plan A, a plan B, a plan C.”
Historically, they are one of the top free throw shooting teams in the country. They were the best team from the charity stripe in the previous three years. This year, they come into the game as the 18th-best free-throw shooting team at 78.7%. For a team that averages 19.2 fouls per game, which is in the 14th percentile according to CBB Analytics, UConn must avoid putting Villanova at the free-throw line.
Villanova is led by senior forward Eric Dixon, the nation’s leading scorer at 25.9 points per game. He is a scoring threat at all three levels. He shoots 68.1% at the rim, 56.8% from mid-range and 49% from deep.
“I think he’s the hardest guy to guard in college basketball,” Hurley said. “He’s playing at a level offensively that no one else is playing at and I don’t think it’s that close, at least from a high-major perspective.”
Hurley, along with Hassan Diarra, Alex Karaban and Samson Johnson, will be familiar with senior guard Wooga Poplar, who averages 13.7 points per game for the Wildcats. Poplar was a starter for Miami (Fla.) when the Huskies took them down in the 2023 Final Four. In that game, Poplar was not a factor for the Huskies, missing all seven shots and turning the ball over twice in the 17 minutes he played.
“He’s coming into this game playing really well,” Hurley said. “[He] looks like a guy that’s going to the NBA and playing in the NBA for a while if he could maintain this level.”
Villanova is notorious for playing at a slow pace. They have not finished a season ranked in the top 200 in tempo since the 2017-18 national championship season. This season, the Wildcats are in the 2nd percentile in pace.
In the last five games, Villanova has been strong on the defensive glass, ranking in the 94th percentile in defensive rebounding at 74.7%.
The Wildcats are a strong offensive team, but that comes with flaws. They are weak on the fast break, ranking in the 17th percentile in fast break points per game at 6.9. While the last five games have shown improvement, they also are flawed in points in the paint, ranking in the 1st percentile in what percentage of their points come from in the paint at 33.1%.
While it was a tale of two halves on Sunday afternoon as Connecticut won in comeback fashion over Providence, a slow start must be avoided against a lethal offense.
Villanova historically has the upper hand on the Huskies, with a narrow 39-36 in the all-time series. However, UConn swept the Wildcats in back-to-back seasons and has won five of the last six meetings.
UConn begins the first of back-to-back road games with Quad 1 opportunities on Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. on FS1.