Villanova One Win From Final Four After Another Easy Victory

Villanova shot 63 percent from the field in the rout over Miami. The Wildcats face Kansas in the regional final Saturday.

The shot clock was winding down. Villanova’s Kris Jenkins had the ball closer to mid-court than the three-point line. He was on the mid-court logo, actually. And so he shot it.

It went in.

It was that kind of night for Villanova, which never trailed in a 92-69 win over the Miami Hurricanes. The Wildcats, the second-seeded team in the South region, advanced to face the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

Earlier this week, I wrote why Villanova’s hot shooting in the first two rounds was a sign the Wildcats could be making a run in the tournament. It happened again last night: Villanova shot 10-of-15 on three-point attempts — their best percentage yet in the tourney — and scored 92 points in the second-slowest game of the tournament to that point. The Wildcats scored 1.57 points per possession — an incredible total. They shot 63 percent from the field in all.

Ryan Arcidiacono and Jenkins each had 21 points for Villanova, who also got 17 from Daniel Ochefu and 14 from Josh Hart — who only played 21 minutes after picking up two early fouls. That wasn’t a bad omen for Hart; Villanova scored the first 5 points of the game, and was up 29-14 just over 11 minutes into the game.

Miami hit four threes in a row at one point to cut the deficit to a point, but Nova was still never really threatened. The Wildcats led 43-37 at halftime and had the game pretty much put away with just 10 minutes remaining. (Ken Pomeroy’s stats gave them a 95 percent chance of winning at that time.)

The Wildcats face Kansas tomorrow at 8:49 p.m.

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