Behind Villanova’s struggles: A three-point shooting slump and troubles against the zone

Villanova’s head-scratching 6-3 start has plenty of varying factors in it. And there is reason to be concerned about where the Wildcats are going.

But there’s also reason to take a step back and let it play out a little more, because there has been a constant in the losses: three-point shooting percentages.

How does a team lose to Drexel the way Villanova did on Saturday? There was more to it, sure, but how many basketball teams win games shooting 5-for-27 from beyond the three-point arc? Not many, and the game was still in Justin Moore’s hands on the final possession.

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How did Villanova lose to St. Joseph’s on Wednesday (beyond the obvious ... the Hawks are good)? The Wildcats shot 27% from deep while St. Joe’s shot 51.9%. The winning team made 14 threes and the losing team made 10. That’s a 12-point differential on what has become the game’s most important shot. St. Joe’s won by 13. It doesn’t take an advanced degree in statistics to figure out the math there. Against Penn, Villanova made just nine of its 33 three-point shots (27.3%).

Yes, the Wildcats struggled mightily at times to score consistently against zone defenses during all three of those losses, and there’s reason to be alarmed about the quality of some of the shots, as well as the 17 turnovers in the St. Joe’s loss, but they did score 72 points vs. Penn. It happened to be the defense that night that caused the loss.

The zones that St. Joe’s and Drexel threw Villanova’s way were different zones with different goals, Villanova coach Kyle Neptune said Monday. Neptune said he liked the shots Villanova got Saturday vs. Drexel when he watched the tape. They just didn’t happen to fall.

“Sports is such a great mirror of life because there’s so much in life that you can’t control,” Neptune said. “At the end of the day, whatever happens, you just have to figure out what is your next best action.”

That action is to keep trying to get better, Neptune said.

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The Wildcats need to get better defensively, Neptune said. The reason they lost Saturday wasn’t the missed shots, he said. It was Drexel shooting 54% in the second half that made the difference. Defense, Neptune and Moore said, will always be the equalizer.

“At the end of the day, there’s no team ever that’s a quality team that goes through an entire season and doesn’t have a spell where they don’t make shots in a game ... or two, or three, or four,” Neptune said. “At the end of the day, we have to get stops.”

Villanova is shooting slightly more three-pointers than it shot a season ago. Through nine games, Villanova is taking 29 shots from three-point range per game, up from 26 a season ago. More than 50% of its total shots have been from deep. Only 12 teams in the country shoot more than 29 three-pointers per game.

Right now, the math says the Wildcats are a below-average shooting team. As of Monday, they were making 31.8% of their three-point attempts, good for 226th in the nation. Last season, the Wildcats shot 33.4%, although this year’s roster is different.

Richmond transfer Tyler Burton borrowed a motto from rapper Rick Ross when asked how a team stays confident in its shooting ability despite the slow start.

“I’m a big one on, you don’t see me every day, so I can’t really listen to what you say about me,” Burton said. “You’re not seeing what I’m doing every single day. If I’m in there shooting and doing what I believe is the right work to do it, I’m a shooter and that’s what it’s going to be. There’s nothing that you can really say that’s going to change that.”

In Burton’s defense, his shooting hasn’t been a problem. Moore, however, is shooting 29.3%, below his career average of 34.9%. Sharpshooting sophomore Brendan Hausen is getting more minutes, but he’s at 33.3% after shooting 42.9% last season. Transfer guard TJ Bamba shot 37.2% from deep last year at Washington State, but he’s at 29.7% so far this season.

Moore’s motto? Keep shooting.

“We just have great shooters,” he said. “We have great offensive guys, period. If the shot’s there, we’re going to take it and not even think about it.”

The difference in the win-loss column will be all of the other things, Neptune said.

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The jump-shot variance, though, is one reason Villanova’s demeanor hasn’t changed much since October, even after running through the Battle 4 Atlantis over Thanksgiving and climbing in the national rankings.

The Wildcats play at Kansas State on Tuesday and at the Wells Fargo Center vs. UCLA on Saturday. It won’t get much easier, as No. 10 Creighton is next on the schedule after that (Dec. 20).

Practice Monday happened to be coming on the heels of two straight defeats in games Villanova was expected to win. The “get better” messaging, Neptune said, was no different than the first practice after the flight home from paradise last weekend.

Maybe it landed a bit differently?

“For good teams, I think they can learn through winning and know there are things we have to get better at and have a thirst to get better,” Neptune said. “That’s really hard to do. I think it’s one of the hardest things to do, to learn after a win. Sometimes when you lose it just magnifies a lot of the things you have to get better at and you focus in on them a little bit more.”

Right now on the Main Line, the magnifying glasses are out in full force.