Villanova Basketball: Keys to success against Baylor in Myrtle Beach Final

3. Stay poised.

Villanova has played quite well so far this season if you exclude their disastrous performance against Ohio State. And while many things went wrong in that 25-point loss to the Buckeyes, the most obvious takeaway was that this young Wildcats’ squad struggled with the bright lights of playing on the road. Now, with another top-25 opponent away from home up next, playing with poise will be the most important key to success for Villanova. The Wildcats’ young core features three freshmen playing significant minutes and all of them will need to be up for the challenge to take down Baylor.

The Bears are an experienced unit led by an underrated head coach and they are more than capable of feeding off mistakes. Baylor prides itself on the defensive end of the floor, where their entire rotation cuts off driving lanes and forces mistakes. Through the first few weeks of the season, they rank 16th in the nation in defensive turnover rate (26.3%), and the Wildcats need to be prepared for their aggressive defense. Considering Villanova is a perimeter-shooting team, it is reasonable to assume that Baylor will deploy its man-to-man set defensively.

The hope for Villanova in this game is that its key freshmen learned valuable lessons from the team’s loss to Ohio State. Jeremiah Robinson-Earl and Justin Moore, most notably, started that game. Bryan Antoine did not suit up (injury) but hopefully, his talent will outweigh some of the inexperience early on. In order to counteract some potential “youthful” mistakes in this game, expect Coach Wright to lean heavily on his junior class.

This means that players such as Collin Gillespie and Jermaine Samuels will need to step up their respective play. They were able to do just that in Villanova’s most recent game, a hard-fought win over Mississippi State in this same neutral-site arena, by combining for 32 points, 7 rebounds, and 11 assists. They can hopefully provide a similar impact as leaders in this one.

On the whole, I believe that Villanova is already starting to turn the corner. Every team experienced a “dud” performance at some point in the year and it might just be that the Wildcats endured that earlier than most in their loss to Ohio State. This should be a tough, close matchup between a high-powered offense and a disciplined defense. If Villanova can control the paint defensively and hit some contested shots, they will walk away from Myrtle Beach as champions of this non-conference event.

Final Prediction: Villanova Wildcats -77, Baylor Bears – 73