Don’t feel too bad, Oklahoma fans. No team in the country was beating Villanova on Saturday.
The Wildcats played their version of “the Perfect Game,” 31 years after they did it the first time to upset Georgetown and win the school’s only national title.
The numbers are staggering: Villanova shot 71.4% from the field and 11-of-18 from deep. And this was at NRG Stadium, a notorious 3-point graveyard.
Villanova scored 95 points on 49 shots. That’s 1.93 points per shot. The 1985 teams scored a ridiculous 2.35 points BEFORE the 3-point shot was implemented in the college game. But that team got the benefit of 27 free throw attempts. This team attempted just 19.
If you exclude free throws, the 2016 team actually performed better from the field, scoring 81 points on 49 shots (1.65 points per shot). The 1985 squad scored 44 points on 28 shots, or 1.57 points per shot. These Wildcats improved on perfection.
Villanova wasn’t just perfect on the offensive end, either. Jay Wright’s team may have been even more impressive when Oklahoma had the ball. Villanova hounded the Sooners on every possession, pressuring ball-handlers and springing well-timed traps whenever an Oklahoma player wandered to the wrong spot on the court.
Buddy Hield was a non-factor after scoring five points in the first few minutes. The leading scorer in the tournament never got comfortable. Villanova, with their four-guard line-up, was able to throw different defenders at him throughout the game. And with shot-eraser Daniel Ochefu shutting down the paint, the perimeter defenders could play right up in Hield’s face without having to worry about him blowing by them.
When Hield did get into the paint, Villanova collapsed on him. Even when he scored at the rim, Hield had to beat three defenders just to get his shot off.
Villanova did the impossible: It turned Hield into a passive player — at least in the first half. Hield was unable to get to the spots on the court where’s most comfortable, and he was reluctant to shoot. Take a look at his shot chart for the season, via shotanalytics.com:
He takes and makes most of his shots from the corners and wings. With Villanova trapping whenever Oklahoma went near either of those spots, Hield was forced to drive or take shots from straight on. Here’s his shot chart from Saturday night, via ESPN.com:
The one shot Hield got from the wing was a forced attempt off of an offensive rebound. Nothing came easy for the best offensive player in the country. Wright had the (here’s that word again) perfect game plan and it took the entire team to execute it.
The end result was the biggest blowout in the history of the Final Four.
And the crazy thing is Oklahoma did not play a terrible first half and still found itself trailing by double digits going into the break. Oklahoma never really stood a chance — not against Villanova playing that well. Even if Hield and the Sooners shot how they had all season, the Wildcats still win by 20. They were that good Saturday night.
[presto-gallery id=”82489746″ title=”Scenes from the Final Four” type=”presto”]
