The weekend is jam-packed with college basketball goodness and one of the sexiest match-ups will pit the Virginia Cavaliers against the Villanova Wildcats. These teams play completely different styles of basketball with Virginia relying on airtight defense to defeat teams, while Villanova uses one of the most efficient offenses in the country to pick up wins. The question in this one is which style will prevail on Sunday afternoon.
This was on the floor will go down Sunday, January 29, 2017, at 1 p.m. ET at the Wells Fargo Center. This game will be televised live on FOX. We will have NCAA basketball odds at BookMaker.eu available for this and every game on the college basketball Sunday schedule.
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Following surprising back-to-back losses against FSU and Pittsburgh, some questioned how good Virginia was this year, but the Cavaliers quickly silenced the doubters. UVA has won five in a row since slipping up against Pittsburgh and has cruised to double-digit victories in all but one of those games. The Wahoos are 11-6 ATS this season and 5-3 ATS in ACC play.
Villanova is anxious to get back on the court after blowing a big lead late against Marquette. The Golden Eagles rallied from a 15-point first half deficit to get the win and that will cost this team the No. 1 spot in the polls next week. Nova has played in a lot of under games this season after the offensive explosion we witnessed last year, with 7 of its last 9 finishing short of the total.
Matchup to Watch
Can Villanova crack Virginia’s defense and avoid losing two games in a row? The Wildcats lost their game against Marquette because of their inability to hit threes and there’s no way they can shoot that poorly from behind the arc again. Only Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges had solid efforts from beyond the arc, hitting 40 percent of their treys, but Kris Jenkins and Jalen Brunson couldn’t buy a bucket. Jenkins, Brunson, and everyone else on the Wildcats’ roster went 0 of 19 from three-point range and that won’t get it done against anybody.
Ken Pomeroy has Virginia rated as the third-best defense in the country. The Cavaliers have given up the fewest points of any team in the nation, just 53.3 PPG allowed, and can typically control the pace of the game too. Tony Bennett teaches his guys to be very fundamentally sound and that’s what they have been.
Last Year’s Meeting
When these teams met last season, it was Virginia that threw caution to the wind and decided to try to match Villanova point for point. Surprisingly, it worked out pretty well for the Cavaliers, as they had one of their best offensive performances of the season, hitting 56.5 percent from the floor and getting to the line 30 times in an 86-75 defeat of the Wildcats.
However, the two players most responsible for that result, Malcolm Brogdon and Anthony Gill, have left and only London Perrantes can match that performance this time. Further, overlooked in that win was the fact that Villanova made almost 50 percent of its shots against Virginia and didn’t have too difficult of a time scoring.
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Last year, UVA seemed to get a lot of home cooking in its win. 30 foul shots is a crazy number and Nova had both Daniel Ochefu and Josh Hart foul out last year. It’s very unlikely that referees will be that whistle happy with the game in Philadelphia this time.
Virginia is still somewhat of an unknown commodity this year. Outside of Perrantes, UVA doesn’t have a shooter it trusts and Villanova is solid enough defensively to flip the script. Watch for Nova to find the holes in Virginia’s defense and get an easy cover.
College Basketball Odds: Villanova 78, Virginia 65
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