Like every other sport and/or league, NCAA Division I college basketball is a world of haves and have nots. Unlike other sports and leagues, the gap between the elites and the also-rans is wider than you can ever imagine. Even though it’s only November, top tier college basketball is still top tier college basketball.
Your defending national championships, the #4 Villanova basketball team, pulled out an exciting, fun to watch 79-76 win tonight at #15 Purdue.
“Just a great college basketball game in November,” said Villanova basketball coach Jay Wright.
“This is a really cool college basketball venue, great crowd, so just a great road win for us, over what is a really good college basketball team.”
Wright extolled the virtues of his just vanquished opponent, and consistently articulated how he believes the Boilermakers are going to have a really special season and thus tonight’s victory will continue to rise in value for this Villanova basketball team. He also discussed how the Wildcats are far from a finished product and that there’s plenty of work to do.
“But we got to get a lot better, we got beat up inside and we’ve been better than that the last couple of years,” Wright said adding that he is not impressed with his team’s defense.
“I’d like to see us answer with more stops,” he said.
Both Villanova basketball players in the postgame press conference, National Title game hero Kris Jenkins and game high scorer Josh Hart denoted how crazy the atmosphere was at a sold out Mackey Arena tonight.
The 14,804 in attendance were indeed LOUD and electric all night.
According to Purdue Sports Information Department, the crowd reaction to the P.J. Thompson buzzer beater half court distance three point field goal off glass registered a 117 on the decibel scale.
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“This game had that kind of feel,” Hart said as he compared the venue on 900 John Wooden Drive to some of the elite venues in the Big East like Xavier or Butler.
“Like Hinkle, you can feel the crowd, so having this game this early in the season is going to help us down the road.”
Purdue forward Basil Smotherman said he couldn’t sleep last night in anticipation of this game, about as big and as exciting and as fun as we’re going to get in November. Smotherman was doubly excited because he was returning to action after a very long layoff.
It’s a shame that we’re not able to get more games of this quality in the non-conference.
“It’s hard to schedule games of this nature,” said Purdue Coach Matt Painter stating that most top teams play in exempt contests and neutral site games.
“Not everyone wants to play on the road, even if you do a home and home.”
That’s a shame because we could all use more fun and entertaining contests like these, and less of the “major conference team blows out cupcake” contest. Tonight we saw an actual measuring stick, and the result?
There’s no reason not to think we won’t be seeing “repeat national champion” Villanova basketball t-shirts come April.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, partnered with FOX Sports Engage Network. and News Now. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes regularly to the Chicago Tribune’s RedEye publication and Bold Global.
He also consistently appears on numerous radio and television talk shows all across the country. Follow him on Twitter and Instagram and Sound Cloud.