Villanova Basketball: 3 takeaways from dominant win over Maryland
By John Makuch
Villanova Basketball rebounded after a tough loss to Penn by dominating Kevin Willard and the Maryland Terrapins 57-40 in a huge bounce back for this team. The Wildcats got off to a 17-3 lead to start things out and it was all smooth sailing from there for Nova.
In a game that was expected to be a close one, seeing the Wildcats go out and dominate the way they did, not even leaving a moment for the Terrapins to put on a comeback was beyond impressive. Richmond transfer Tyler Burton led the way in scoring with 15 points as he is now starting to get going.
Hakim Hart, the former Maryland Terrapin got the win against his former team with eight points in the effort, and it seemed the insider info he was able to provide helped Villanova dominate the way that it did, with the Wildcats snuffing out play after play defensively. Holding any team to just 40 points is impressive in and of itself, and this team did that to a Willard-coached Maryland team that had high expectations heading into the year.
The Wildcats advance to 4-1 with this win, and the Terrapins fall all the way to 1-4 with a mountain now to climb back up from. But the Wildcats have kept themselves within the top-25 range after this performance, and now have Texas Tech coming up on the schedule.
But what are the takeaways from this win? And what did we learn about Kyle Neptune and these Villanova Wildcats?