When the Final Four begins this upcoming Saturday in New Orleans, Villanova will be forced to take the court without one of its leading scorers. All-Big East guard Justin Moore suffered a torn right Achilles in the team's South Regional final victory over Houston, and coach Jay Wright revealed on Monday that he underwent season-ending surgery. A major blow for the Wildcats.
Moore, a three-year starter who averaged 14.8 points this season (36 games), sustained the injury while driving to the hoop with only 40 seconds left in the contest. Near the three-point line, he slipped and collapsed, forcing a tie-up, and after being helped off the floor, he wasn't able to participate in Villanova's postgame ceremonies. The Wildcats' depth will certainly be tested when they take on blue-blood Kansas, the Final Four's lone top-seed.
"If there's one team in the country that has a culture of playing the same way, game in and game out, no matter what, it's Villanova," former Wildcats coach and current CBS college hoops analyst Steve Lappas told Maggie and Perloff on Monday. "I thought last year when Collin Gillespie went out, that they were dead in the water. You know what, they played pretty good in the tournament without him. And I thought he was clearly their most irreplaceable guy.
"Now, they're probably playing without a second irreplaceable guy, in Moore. The starting five for Kansas is just as, or almost as good as it was with Justin Moore. The starting five they have now is pretty, pretty good. The problem is, if they get into any kind of foul trouble, they've got to start playing guys who haven't played big minutes this season... The margin for error has gone down significantly, because of the complete and utter lack of depth..."
Moore's absence means that Villanova sixth-man Caleb Daniels will enter the starting lineup. In the victory over Houston, the senior guard added 12 points in 35 minutes, and across 34 total games, he's averaged 10.2 points with 3.8 rebounds and shot 37-percent from beyond the arc. The Wildcats still have a healthy star in Collin Gillespie, who leads the team in points and assists.
Villanova (30-7) and Kansas (32-6) are scheduled to tip-off at 6:09 p.m. ET on Saturday inside the Caesars Superdome. According to FiveThirtyEight's projections, the Wildcats currently have a 31-percent chance to advance to the championship game and face either Duke or North Carolina. Since 2016, Villanova has cut down the nets twice.
The entire Final Four conversation between Lappas and Maggie and Perloff can be accessed in the audio player above.
You can follow the Maggie and Perloff Show on Twitter @MaggieandPerl and Tom Hanslin @TomHanslin.