PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — For the seventh time under head coach Jay Wright, the Villanova Wildcats men’s basketball team has made it to the Sweet 16.
This time, they did it without one of their best players, senior guard Collin Gillespie, who’s out with a serious knee injury.
“Most important, we have really good players,” Wright said. “It always comes down to that. It really does. … They just took it up a notch and they took more responsibility and they got their opportunity and they proved themselves. It’s a really beautiful thing in sports and as a coach when you get to see your guys do that.”
The five-seeded Wildcats erased an eight-point first-half deficit to 13-seed North Texas Sunday night in Indianapolis, with a 34-6 run in their 84-61 second-round victory. They drilled 15 threes on 30 attempts, and eight different Cats made at least one three-pointer.
“Everything looks great when the shots are going in,” said Wright, who believed his team’s defense was good enough to still give them a chance to win, in the event they didn’t shoot the ball as well.
While Villanova didn’t miss, that’s not how senior Jermaine Samuels wanted to define the night.
“I was more excited about just playing Villanova basketball,” he said. “Proving it to each other on the defensive end. Making extra plays for each other, making extra passes. Shots are always nice, but it’s just that togetherness on the floor is more than just making shots.”
The Wildcats made sure to include Gillespie and fellow injured senior Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree in the postgame celebration, where they added their name to another round of the brackets.
Next for Villanova is one-seed Baylor from the South Region on Saturday. The Bears went 24-2 this season, and Wright thinks highly of them.
“They are so good, man,” Wright told CBS Sports after Sunday’s victory. “I feel like it’s an NBA team today watching them.”
Nova lost to Baylor in the 2019-20 season.
“I think they’ve been one of the best teams in the country — them and Gonzaga — all year,” Wright said. “So, we’re gonna get to play the best. That’s why you play in the NCAA Tournament. You look forward to these types of games.”