Villanova recently began conference play off strong with a win over Rutgers. A more impressive win though was the recent triumph over a dangerous Temple team. Last year, Temple pulled off the upset with the help of guard Juan Fernandez’s 33 points (21 of which came off of 7 threes). This time around Fernandez was still lights out but it was no 33 point performance. The score looked closer than what it really should have been, due to a flurry of last second points by Temple.

I saw a couple of improvements during the game that proved to me that Nova was ready for Big East play. First, we were much more focused defensively and caused turnovers by putting more pressure on the Temple offense. We also managed to pushed the tempo of the game so that it would fit our style better, scoring points in transition with excellent ball movement. Moreover, there has been a big improvement from Maurice Sutton, who seemed to improve on defense, getting a key block and a couple of rebounds. Hopefully this will be a sign of things to come.

As for my key three players, Corey Stokes, Mouphtaou Yarou, and Maalik Wayns have been critical to our success. Yarou dominated down low, scoring a solid 14 points. Wayns took over the point guard and led Nova on some key scoring drives especially that buzzer beater in the first half to give us some momentum. And Stokes has been my MVP so far, stepping up big and leading the team in scoring. He has shown the biggest improvement, and if the rest of the team can get in sync, his shooting will make us unstoppable come March.

Stokes has become the deadly shot from beyond the arc and now handles and uses his size to get to the rim and create for himself. He is nearly perfect from the foul line, missing only 3 in 47 attempts.

As for the Rutgers game, it was a clear cut win even though Rutgers put up a fight in the first half Nova ran away with it in the second. Again Stokes led the team in scoring and has become the go to guy on the court. Fisher contributed a lot as well by scoring 19, but he has still been a little inconsistent. The defense again showed improvement, causing turnovers with minimal fouls.

The next game is against South Florida, which should be easy even though they took #4 UConn to overtime. But seeing how UConn is has only one star athlete in Kemba Walker, Nova should win and get warmed up for upcoming games against a suprising Cincinnati team and an under-the-radar Louisville squad.

Tennessee, however, should pose a much greater threat. The Vols are freakishly athletic and LOVE to play a full court press on defense. They thrive off opponents’ turnovers and will push the ball whenever possible. Two guys, 6’7 Scotty Hopson and 6’8 Tobias Harris, will be the focus of our defensive efforts as both will present some serious challenges. Our problem will be finding guys to guard them since Stokes doesn’t have the length and Pena is simply too slow. Armwood should be relied upon heavily at times, but he lacks the defensive IQ to be a lock down defender at this stage in his career. The number one focus should be containing them; if we can’t, then we will have serious problems.

However, Tennessee does have some big flaws which can be easily exposed by our guards. Their 3-point shooting is horrendous, at just 25.4% this season. So tightening our defense could help in securing rebounds and preventing second chance opportunities. They also lack a real point guard, and have for a few years now, which leads to turnover problems. Trae Golden, a 6’1 freshman, is the closest thing they have right now, but he’s averaging less than 20 minutes a game and hasn’t seen anything like our guards.

So while their long, athletic forwards will create problems for us, our highly regarded backcourt will counter with scoring of their own. In the end, the winner will be the team who takes better care of the ball. Tennessee, who places an emphasis on beating opponents off their own mistakes, has a pretty big turnover problem themselves since they lack a point guard. Sounds like a perfect chance for our guards to do their damage.

Vegas currently sees Villanova as 6 point favorites, which seems pretty accurate. Tennessee is better than UCLA, but will have their hands full if our guards can beat the press. They will have no answer for Wayns and Fisher, who will do more damage than both Hopson and Harris. In short, it’s a typical battle between guards and forwards in which an up-tempo game will give us the edge.

Prediction: Villanova 80 Tennessee 74

Aside from the big performances of ‘Nova’s three starting guards, the storyline of last night’s game was the coming out party of Mouphtaou Yarou. Many asked how Mouph would handle playing against a frontcourt with size and skill, and he answered loudly by scoring 13 points grabbing a career high 16 rebounds. He was aggressive on the glass and was a defensive presence. He looked fluid and showed several nice moves in the post. We are finally seeing the skilled post game that recruiting analysts raved about in high school.

Of course we cannot ignore the show put on by the trio of Maalik Wayns, Corey Fisher, and Corey Stokes, who combined for 61 of the team’s 82 points. Enjoy Wayns while you can. If he wants to get to the tin, there is nothing stopping him. He was a little out of control at times but he will learn with experience when to be aggressive and when to pull it out and run the offense. His stats should have even been more impressive as several times he hit players under the basket for easy buckets that were missed. Corey Fisher scored a career high 26 for his hometown crowd. ‘Nova’s backcourt is as good as it gets. Fisher and Wayns have silenced concerns of whether the two small guards can play together. Stokes is showing off his improved handle and scoring more frequently at the rim.

The ‘Cats went with the hot hands on Wednesday night, allowing the bench to score only six points. This should not be a concern as ‘Nova’s bench has shown that they can score when they need to. Villanova only committed 7 turnover on the night and won the rebounding battle 46-43. Defensively the Wildcats were impressive, keeping the Bruins from getting in to any kind of offensive rhythm. Mouph did a good job of keeping Josh Smith (can someone get him some bigger shorts) in check.

On Friday, the ‘Cats will play the Tennessee Volunteers for the NIT Preseason Championship. Tennessee’s biggest weapon is Scotty Hopson, who carried the load for his squad when they struggled in their semifinal matchup against Virginia Commonwealth. Aside from having the best haircut in the land, the 6-7 junior guard has plenty of length for his position and will be a handful to match-up against. He recorded his first career double-double with 18 points and 11 rebound against VCU. Look for Stokes to get the defensive assignment along with some splashes of the equally bouncy Armwood.

VCU hung with the No. 24 Vols for most of the game but did not half enough to push them over the top. The Vols are a long and athletic team but have a glaring weakness with the lack of depth at the ball handling position. If ‘Nova presses effectively, they could force a ton of turnovers against the Vols. Tennessee is a great rebounding team and finished with 54 rebounds against VCU. ‘Nova’s big men will need to stay out of foul trouble to keep things fair on the glass.

Villanova was still settling for jump shots and refusing to pass the ball down low for easy scoring opportunities. It looked like the same old careless team we saw last season… the one that got knocked out in the second round after narrowly avoiding a loss to Robert Morris.

But then something clicked. Maurice Sutton (of all people) triggered some sort of chain reaction that instantly provided an entirely new dimension to our offense. At that point, Wayns and Fisher finally realized that some of those big guys under the basket were on our team. And they were capable of putting the ball in the basket just like them! Who would have thought?

Given it was Marist, I decided not to do a post-game wrap up yesterday. There were too many pros; too many things to be excited about that had little meaning because the opponent was just that bad. But today the same Villanova squad came out to play.

The game was never really close and we decided to dominate the paint on 55% shooting instead of relying on the same old three-point shot. It worked tremendously. Pena had 17 points and 8 rebounds on 7-9 shooting. Mouph contributed 9 and 6 of his own, and Maalik Wayns, the NBA prospect we’ve been talking about for quite a while now, had 12 points, 12 assists, 6 rebounds, and just ONE turnover.

Needless to say, I’m happy. The assist-to-turnover ratio over the past two games for our team has been 40:18, and free-throw shooting was nearly flawless.

It also appears that Mouph is finally coming along. He’s slowly becoming more comfortable with the ball in his hands, and even completed a few and-one plays. I’ve said it before, but he is going to be a major key to our success this year.

Yet despite the solid performances in both games, there are always things to work on. Optimism and overconfidence can always come back to hurt a team, so with that being said, here are some things that need improvement:

1. Perimeter defense. Boston University managed to stay in the game at times with their three-point shooting. Sure they shot the ball 32 times from beyond the arc, but 11 3′s is still a lot. Sometimes our guys got a little lazy and didn’t come all the way out to contest the shot. Other times they didn’t fight through screens.

2. Careless shots. Why we settle for contested jump shots against these teams is beyond me. Our guys are so much quicker and longer so we should be attacking the rim all the time. It looked better tonight, but shot selection can and will hurt us down the stretch. Our guys can shoot, great. However, that doesn’t mean we should be making things more difficult than they really are.

3. Fast break opportunities. I know we’re a different team this year without Scottie, but I still saw very little from Fisher and Wayns in terms of pushing the ball in transition. That’s where easy points come from, so we should be outrunning them and taking advantage of it. I hope to see some improvement here.

With that being said, our next game is home against Lafayette on Saturday. Then we head to Madison Square Garden next week to face UCLA and the VCU/Tennessee winner. Tennessee would be an interesting match up…

With that being said, a lot of people are coming away with impressions that are either flat out wrong or exaggerated.

First off, Mouph is by no means a “bad player.” The kid didn’t start playing American basketball until about 3 years ago and also missed half of last season, the most crucial part of his development, because of hepatitis B. So we, as fans, are in no position to say he’s overrated or that he won’t reach his potential.

However, raw and undeveloped are perfectly acceptable in this case, due to the aforementioned reasons. Mouph is still very hesitant when he gets the ball in the post and struggles in back to the basket situations. At this stage though, his size is enough to deter opponents from attacking the paint, and that’s all we need. To the fans: don’t get impatient with Mouph. Big men take considerably more time to develop.

In terms of our guards, Corey Fisher showed the leadership everyone was looking for last night. He led the way with 24 points, including 4-8 from beyond the arc. He also displayed some Scottie instincts, widening the scoring margin when we needed it most. There is no doubt in my mind that he will be the go-to-guy in crunch time.

Maalik’s turnovers still annoy me. Despite the 6 assists for the night, he turned the ball over an equal number of times and never looked to feed the ball into the post. The three-point shooting was somewhat disappointing, but it wouldn’t be fair to judge his shooting by one game. I fully expect him to improve in both of these areas over the season. One last thing: he needs to learn how to use his quickness to beat defenders off the dribble. We saw very little of that last night. He isn’t NBA ready just yet.

Finally, we MUST utilize our post players now that we have some. Mouph, Pena, Armwood, and Sutton all have substantial height advantages against these lower caliber opponents, so why aren’t we using them? Pena only got 4 shots and Mouph 5. They aren’t going to get any better if we don’t give them the chance. We cannot blame coaching or the post players themselves here. The burden has to fall onto both Fisher and Wayns who are responsible for distributing the ball. The day we learn to utilize them is the day we will truly dominate our opponents. All championship teams have a post presence that can step up when perimeter shooting fails.

Without getting into too much detail, he was intentionally locked in a room and managed to escape, then proceeding to retaliate. It was merely a matter of anger management for the freshman, but nonetheless it will be an incident that results in a suspension.

In terms of the implications for our team, Pinkston isn’t a starter, nor is he a go-to option off the bench at this point. So a suspension at the beginning of the season won’t hurt us too much, just as long as he comes back with his head on straight.

I also don’t expect to see him on the court at all this Friday since matters are still under investigation, but let’s be honest here, it’s Bucknell.

Friday marks the first game of the season… and hopefully this time it doesn’t end in drama filled chaos.

He may not be as strong or athletic as most of our past point guards, but his court vision and basketball IQ are much better than most would expect. He also has an insatiable desire to win, something we’ve seen in both Foye and Reynolds. This will help take the pressure off future PG Tyrone Johnson when Maalik Wayns decides to go pro, and will provide us with a much needed shooter down the road. It is safe to say that Ryan “Arch” Arcidiacono will fit right in with the rest of Guard U. After all, who doesn’t love a lights out shooter?

Moreover, this commitment shows that we will be targeting a long, athletic forward now that our guard slots are filled up. Some names that come to mind are Kyle Anderson and Savon Goodman, both highly rated, highly sought after recruits in the 2012 class.

Highlight video. Just what we like to see from a Nova guard.

1.  A much higher level of team chemistry. No more Scottie vs. Corey issues and no struggle for playing time at point guard. Maalik Wayns will be there to fill in Scottie’s shoes but both he and Fisher are capable of playing off the ball.

2.  A new and improved Antonio Pena. I’ve been hearing lots of reports that Pena has really stepped up his game over the off-season now that he can finally playing his natural position at the Power Forward. Hopefully we’ll get to see a glimpse of that today.

3.   Dominic Cheek’s perimeter game. With the dismissal of Taylor King and the departure of Scottie Reynolds, we seem to be lacking in pure shooters. Stokes is good but inconsistent and Cheek struggled with his shot for a good part of last season. I expect that to change this year.

4.   Maurice Sutton. Yes, he will actually see the time on the court this year. He may not have much offensive skill, but he’s an extremely tall guy with long arms to compensate for it. Three years down the road we may actually be grateful for having him.

5.  Improved court awareness from Wayns. Everyone knows that his potential is through the roof so that’s nothing new. But I’d really like to see a better sense of direction in his game. He needs to learn how to locate the open man.

6.   Corey Fisher’s all around dominance. We saw glimpses of it last year and I don’t expect that to change. This is a big time for Fisher to prove that he can step up and lead this team. The talent is there, we just need that leadership.

There will be a full break down following the event. Let the season begin!

For example, for every first place vote a team receives, they will be given 25 points. A second place vote adds 24 points, a third place 23, and so on.

While the Wildcats were largely outnumbered in terms of first place votes, they were a clear cut pick to finish in second place behind Pittsburgh. A projected second place finish might even be too optimistic based on how we fared last season, but the Big East as a whole will experience a “down year” with notably less talent on each roster. Pittsburgh is officially the team to beat.

Here is how the votes turned out:

1. Pittsburgh (12) 222
2. Villanova (1) 208
3. Syracuse (2) 187
4. Georgetown 173
5. West Virginia 164
6. St. John’s (1) 145
7. Notre Dame 123
t-8. Louisville 121
t-8. Marquette 121
10. Connecticut 113
11. Seton Hall 104
12. Cincinnat 91
13. South Florida 54
14. Providence 36
15. Rutgers 32
16. DePaul 26

Preseason Player of the Year: Austin Freeman, Georgetown

Preseason First Team:
Austin Freeman, Georgetown
Kemba Walker, Connecticut
Ashton Gibbs, Pittsburgh
Jeremy Hazell, Seton Hall
Corey Fisher, Villanova
Kevin Jones, West Virginia

If Pitt and Nova both manage to fulfill these expectations, February 12th will hold one of the most highly anticipated games in Villanova basketball history.

Also starting on Friday, Nova Basketball Report will be kicking into full gear. Be sure to check back soon and often!