Now #5 In Nation, Villanova Readies For Xavier
By Matt Leon
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Villanova Wildcats will play their first game since jumping up to #5 in the polls when they welcome Xavier to the Pavilion for a Big East tussle on Wednesday night.
The Wildcats are 15-1 this season (3-1 in the Big East) and coming off an impressive 81-64 win over DePaul last time out on Saturday. The Wildcats have really played at a high level all season long and head coach Jay Wright likes what he has seen.
"Well we're actually playing about how I thought we would play," Wright tells KYW Newsradio. "You never know what the record's going to be. You know we've had some close games, game against Syracuse we could've easily lost, a game against Bucknell we could've lost. So you never know what the records going to be. With the veteran leadership we have, JayVaughn Pinkston and Darrun Hilliard as seniors, I kind of thought with (Ryan) Arcidiacono and Dylan Ennis and Dan Ochefu, that type of veteran leadership, I thought we could be pretty good."
Good, balanced and deep. The Wildcats feature five players scoring between 10.1 and 13.5 points per game. They have eight players averaging at least 13 minutes a game, but only one player averages more than 30 (Arcidiacono at 30.1).
"We have a really good rotation of eight guys and we've got a ninth guy in Darryl Reynolds who can come in at any time and really help us," Wright says.
Listen to the entire interview with Jay Wright . .
As well as this season has gone, Wright says there is always room for improvement.
"We've got to learn to deal with success," Wright says. "Keeping your humility is important and keeping your desire to continue to get better is important. It's easy for the coaches, but 18 to 22-year-olds, it's new to them. I think we can get a lot better. I think we can get better defensively, we can get better rebounding. So we've definitely got room for improvement."
Xavier will bring an 11-5 record (2-2 in the Big East) into the Pavilion on Wednesday night and Wright says they will give the Wildcats all they can handle.
"A really unique Xavier team that's very explosive offensively," Wright says. "They are always a very good offensive team, but this team has multiple scorers, very similar to us. They are one of the highest scoring teams in the country (79 ppg). A lot of three-point shooters and then in Matt Stainbrook, probably one of the best post players in the conference. So they've got everything."
Villanova and Xavier will tip-off at 9:00pm on Wednesday night.
You can follow Matt on Twitter @mattleonkyw.
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