No. 15 UConn Huskies VS Villanova Wildcats
24-5 (16-0) 17-10 (10-6)
Wedneday, February 28st, 7:00 PM
Gampel Pavilion
Storrs, CT
TV - SNY
VILLANOVA vs UCONN
UCONN LEADS 43-18 H: 19-7 | A: 19-8 | N: 5-3
01/22/00 #1 UConn 79, VU 46 Villanova, Pa.
02/04/01 #2 UConn 75, #24 VU 39 Storrs, Conn.
02/18/01 #3 UConn 61, #25 VU 43 Villanova, Pa.
01/19/02 #1 UConn 93, VU 60 Villanova, Pa.
03/04/02 #1 UConn 83, VU 39 Piscataway, N.J.
01/29/03 #2 UConn 58, #20 VU 38 Storrs, Conn.
03/11/03 #18 VU 52, #1 UConn 48 Piscataway, N.J.
02/28/04 VU 59, #1 UConn 56 Villanova, Pa.
01/15/05 #16 UConn 73, VU 57 Storrs, Conn.
12/08/05 #8 UConn 72, VU 56 Villanova, Pa
02/24/07 #3 UConn 92, VU 49 Hartford, Conn.
01/03/08 #1 UConn 88, VU 38 Villanova, Pa.
02/24/09 #1 UConn 74, VU 47 Storrs, Conn. 0
3/09/09 #1 UConn 72, VU 42 Hartford, Conn.
01/23/10 #1 UConn 74, VU 35 Villanova, Pa.
01/05/11 #2 UConn 81, VU 35 Storrs, Conn.
01/14/12 #3 UConn 72, VU 49 Villanova, Pa.
01/29/13 #3 UConn 76, VU 43 Hartford, Conn.
12/22/20 #3 UConn 90, VU 52 Villanova, Pa.
03/07/21 #1 UConn 84, VU 39 Uncasville, Conn.
02/09/22 VU 72, #8 UConn 69 Hartford, Conn.
03/07/22 #6 UConn 70, VU 40 Uncasville, Conn.
01/29/23 #5 UConn 63, #21 VU 58 Hartford, Conn.
02/18/23 #6 UConn 60, #14 VU 51 Villanova, Pa.
03/06/23 #7 UConn 67, #10 VU 56 Uncasville, Conn
01/31/24 #11 UConn 81, VU 60 Villanova, Pa.
Villanova Season to Date
Nova is having a decent season with their W-L record at 17-10 and 10-6 in the Big East. They started their season going 6-4 in their OOC schedule. Not the greatest competition. But they did play a couple of good Ivy league teams losing to Columbia 77-75 and to Princeton 61-58.
After the Princeton loss they lost their Big East opener to St. John's 51-46. A quick game against LaSalle in their last OOC game winning 74-60 and then they played and won their next five BE games beating Xavier 86-45, Seton Hall 50-45, Georgetown 53-51 in overtime, Butler 65-54, and then No. 22 Marquette 66-63. A great start to the conference season. They then lost to then No. 21 Crieghton 66-63 and Providence 82-76 in overtime.
Nova then beat DePaul 95-64 before UConn beat them in their place 81-60. Since that game the Wildcats has gone 4-2 losing to a weak Butler team 55-52 and No. 21 Creighton 79-69 in their latest game 79-69.
Comparative Team Statistics
Leader in Bold
UConn Villanova
82.5 PPG 65.8
58.7 Defensive PPG 59.5
23.8 Scoring Margin 7.1
50.6 Field Goal % 41.1
36.6 Defensive FG% 40.1
36.4 Three Point % 30.0
29.1 Defensive 3PT% 32,6
74.5 Free Throw % 73.7
38.7 Rebounds/game 35.5
6.3 Rebounding Margin -0.8
20.2 Assists per game 14.6
12.8 Turnover per game 10.4
1.6 Assists/TO ratio 1.4
10.4 Steals per game 7.0
UCONN
The player and coaches names for both teams
are clickable to see their Bios
are clickable to see their Bios
UConn Starters
UConn Injuries
OUT FOR THE SEASON
ACL
Achilles Injury
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Villanova Wildcats
Villanova Starters
Villanova Bench
Game Analysis
Returning starter 5'9" junior guard Lucy Olsen is now the star of the team and the leading scorer in the Big East. She has had a great season to date at 23.6 PPG nearly double her scoring of last season. She also leads the team in assists at 4 per game. Her shooting percentages are down this season, shooting 44.8% from the field and only 30.1% on threes. Her scoring is up because she is shooting a ton of shots. A true volume shooter. She takes around 25% of the team's shots and the same percentage of three point shots. She is fiesty like Nika, who will probably be guarding her for most of the game. It will be fun when they face each other. She was held to 15 points on 6-17 shooting in the first match up.
A returning starter is Maddie Burke, a 6' senior guard. She is only averaging 4.1 PPG and has taken the second most three point shots on the team at around 4 per game. But she shoots them really poorly at 23.7%. She came off the bench in the first game and only scored 2 points.
Christina Dalce is the only size on the ream at 6'2". The junior forward is a terrific shot blocker and averages over 2.2 per game. She won't add much scoring in this game or any game for that matter. She only averages 8.9 PPG and 10.1 RPG. Dalce had 7 points and of course 1 block in the first match up.
Junior Zanai Jones, a 5'6" guard has earned a starting spot this season. Not a great three point shooter at 31%, she does a nice job of taking care of the ball with only 16 turnovers on the season. She had a nice game in the first match up with 14 points on 5-12 shooting. She got to the FT line 4 times make all four.
Bella Runyan, a 5'11" junior guard is the final starter on the team. She is averaging 7.1 PPG and 4.8 RPG but was scoreless int he first match up.
It looks like Villanova only goes 7 deep recently with Maddie Webber, a 5'11" freshman guard and Kaitlyn Orihel, a 5'10" junior guard, rounding out the rotation. Webber started the first match up and scored 11 points. .
Nova is small and relies on one player for scoring. That is a recipe for disaster against a team loaded for bear after an embarassing loss. UConn will pressure the ball and run off every defensive rebound. Villanova is not a good shooting team so there will be plenty of those available.
Final Prediction
As usual, Villanova does not turn the ball over very often. Their issue is they are a terrible shooting team. And they hadn't played a team like UConn. They held Nova to 37 from the field and 28% on threes. Once again Bueckers and Edwards led the way in the 81-60 win with 21 and 22 points respectively. It was only a 1 point lead for UConn at the hald before taking over in the second half.
Last season every game was relatively close with the Huskies winning 63-58, 60-51 and 67-56. UConn couldn't break the 70 point mark. That didn't happen in the first match against this version of the Wildcats. They are really missing Maddie Seigrist.
At home in the last Gampel game of the season I expect a solid performance for UConn.
My guess is UConn by 25+
GO HUSKIES!!
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