Ritterbusch's Take: A Snapshot of a not-so-superNova

The rest of the weekly schedule will get pushed back by a day, with my take on Sweet 16 weekend and a summary of Duke's season tomorrow, Vegas summary Thursday, and
Final Four picks and Odds and Ends on Friday. Anyway, here is Jim Ritterbusch's take on Nova's performance.
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To: A Sad Nova Nation,

The situation that we all most feared came to fruition and served to seal our fate. On a night where the Wildcats guards could not find their collective outside shooting rhythm, we faced off against a team featuring perhaps the most athletically talented and mobile front line in the tourney. Many times in this forum we have all agreed that the Cats would be hard-pressed to win this single elimination competition given the make-up of the 05/06 squad and its extreme reliance on the long range jumper. In retrospect, it is really amazing that we won the BC game on Friday PM given the slumping play of Ray and Nardi. With a heavy heart (okay, perhaps a bit dramatic – its just hoops), I offer my commentary:

Villanova vs Boston College:
My first and foremost thought on this one – brutally tough game to watch; just ugly, ugly basketball. How the hell do we shoot 35% from the floor and beat Boston College? The primary answer – Big East POY, Randy Foye. He simply would not let us lose that game. He scored twenty-nine of our sixty points, and I believe every one of our OT points prior to Sheridan’s goaltending hoop. Just a tremendous exhibition of will and guts. The other answers – a) BC shoots an atrocious 8 – 17 from the foul line; in my opinion that alone warrants expulsion from The Dance and b) tough Nova “D” forcing the turnovers (21 to 10 edge) and keeping the Cats in the game.

Other thoughts on this one:
Nice effort by Cunningham and Clark; thirty-six hustling minutes from Dante C providing us with 8 boards and an athletic presence to mix it up with the BC bruising front-line
One of the most non-discussed athletic plays I think I have ever seen was the end of regulation block by BC’s Sean Williams. That guy got UP to get a piece of that shot. I thought that ball was on line and I could not believe he got over to get a finger or two on it.
Good line by Sheridan regarding the final hoop – “Biggest basket of my career and it didn’t even go in”.
I thought we got a break from the zebras on that walk call at the end of regulation. I thought that was a bad call. But, given our recent history of walk calls at the end of Sweet Sixteen contests, I would say we were “owed one” by the basketball gods.

Villanova vs Florida:
Although we hung in there and Foye made big shot after big shot to keep us in the contest, we ultimately did not deserve to win this game. In the end, Noah and Horford were able to skirt around our front line guys to grab boards and get off close range chip shots and slams. Taureen Green played a tough all-round game and made the clutch baskets. Despite all of this, we had our chances at 45 – 42 to knot things up but missed on long-range J’s by Foye and Nardi. Perhaps if one of those dropped we would have caused them to play tighter and let us back in. It did not happen.

I hesitate to single out one guy, but it was painful watching Allan Ray in this game (and tourney overall). He shot 3 of 15 from the floor and ultimately shot us right out of the game in that second half. For the four-game tourney Ray was 21 for 65. I heard somewhere that he was 3 for 32 in last year’s tourney (25% over 7 games). These are “take a seat on the bench” stats - atrocious for a starting shooting guard. Ray clearly cannot get into the paint to get off shots like Foye, and he is hard pressed to create much of anything off the dribble. To create some space he has developed this step-back jumper that results in this body-tilted fade-away jump shot. His body is never squared up on those shots and they rarely drop. If you were to look back at the UConn game, a game which he flat-out took over in the second half, you will see that he was always squared on his jumper (sometimes fading away, but not tilted).

The shooting stats of Lowry, Ray and Nardi combined in this game was 7 for 39 – also horrendous. Nardi is another guy you can point to as disappointing. However, I agree with Billy Packer when he said Nardi was not the same coming back from the tonsillitis episode. When he did return, it was definitely tougher for him to get in a groove being that Wright had to give up some of his minutes to Cunningham and Clark. Lastly, Will Sheridan was 0 for 6, with 1 point and five boards. We were not winning this game with these stats. It is always a bit tougher to digest a loss when you feel that you played way beneath your “A” game. If you get taken out while playing your best you are more inclined to tip the cap to the opponent. But, the result is what it is and that is one of the beautiful things about March Madness – you don’t get do-overs.

I don’t know if it was just my misery in watching us get our ass handed to us, but this “Joe Kim” Noah really irked me on Sunday. Did the guy need to let out a scream followed by a chest pound after every single play he made – it drove me nuts. Plus, the guy looks like a female impersonator. And, he is cocky as shit. Okay, perhaps if I saw him under different circumstances I would appreciate his unique talents and perhaps like him – but as of now, he irks me. This falls under the next-guy-to-date-your-ex-girlfriend-is-an-ahole theory. If you had met under different circumstances the two of you would probably like each other – but given the situation, you cannot like him.

Nice effort by Jason Frasor. I break his chops, but he does what he can given his diminished physical skills. Who knows what he could have been had he remained healthy. Imagine this team with a healthy Frasor and Sumpter. Obviously other guys would not have had the opportunity to blossom, so there is always the tradeoff.

General Tourney Notes:

• From my view, the two most entertaining games were UConn-Washington and UConn-George Mason; further, Marcus Sheridan had a tremendous tournament – in my mind, the best of anybody
• George Mason story is a great one – how can you not be rooting for them this weekend; and, there players all seem very likable
• Tyrus Thomas is the most athletic guy I have seen in a while. Some NBA people are saying he would be a top five pick if he came out this year; I did not see enough of him and do not know if he can shoot a jumper. If he can, he has a great NBA future at small forward
• What is with the cramping up in games; I don’t understand how this happens so often. These players and the programs have full time monitoring of nutritional intake, fluid intake, etc; these are elite athletes in prime shape – I just don’t see how/why this occurs so regularly
• Big Baby Davis – I also think this guy has a good NBA future. He has a nice nose for the ball, he uses his body to create space to get shots off, and he can hit 3-point shots; the question is will he go the Charles Barkley route and get in shape and stay focused on maximizing his talents, or, will he go the Hot Plate Williams/Chris Washburn, etc route and eat his way out of the league in two or three years.

Big expectations for Nova next year. If Sumpter is at full strength we are going to be at same level as we were this past year.