Villanova about to find out if Delaware Blue Hens have an NCAA upset in them

PITTSBURGH — An NCAA day-before shootaround is not the real practice, more a public workout, part of March Madness promotional efforts, so if anyone who showed up Thursday afternoon at PPG Paints Arena saw the Villanova Wildcats get a workout in … actually, it was not low-key.

“Let’s go … details, details, details,’’ yelled a Villanova assistant coach.

No, wait, that was Collin Gillespie. The fifth-year point guard just can sound like a coach at this point. Jay Wright was over chatting with the CBS group, making small talk, a standard part of the promotional end of things.

» READ MORE: Collin Gillespie was running a play called 'Nova in Northeast Philly before he was 10 years old.

“Let’s talk about the game — what do you want to know?” Wright said after some chitchat.

His first thought about the Delaware Blue Hens, Friday’s 2:45 p.m. opponent?

“Scared to death,” Wright said.

Sometimes when you’re a No. 2 seed, as Villanova is, facing a No. 15 seed, as Delaware is, it’s hard to see the upset. This game isn’t that … Villanova’s worst day, coupled with a big afternoon by the Blue Hens, Wright’s anxiety absolutely could play out to the final minutes.

“This would not be an earth-shattering upset,” said one coach who has seen them both a lot. “The only reason it would be earth-shattering is because ‘Nova [wouldn’t be] in the tournament any longer.”

It would, however, be historically noteworthy for Delaware to win this game. The Blue Hens, who swept through the Colonial Athletic Association tournament after finishing fourth in the league, are ranked 145th nationally in the KenPom.com rankings. Villanova, 11th in those same computer rankings, hasn’t lost to a team out of the top 140 in any game — home, road, NCAAs — since dropping a home shocker to Columbia on Nov. 20, 2012.

When KenPom.com gives Delaware an 11% chance of winning, that’s not nothing. At the racetrack, 10-1 horses win every afternoon. But if you’re going to hang with this particular Wildcats group, you have to handle their guards … all of them. A big Justin Moore game is usually a winning game. Same for Caleb Daniels. Throwing additional resources at the guards doesn’t usually work, with their ability to spot open teammates.

All six teams that beat 26-7 Villanova (Marquette did it twice) shared a couple of traits. All are in this NCAA Tournament. Delaware (22-12) obviously passes that test. All six also had an average height taller than the Wildcats. Maybe a telling stat. If Villanova’s guards can’t shoot over you, it’s tougher for them. If they can take you inside and punish a mismatch, they’ll do that. This Delaware group is not taller than Villanova, inch for inch, man for man.

So, that’s it? Not so fast. Although the Blue Hens were eighth in the CAA at defending the three, their CAA wins over Drexel, Towson, and UNC-Wilmington were fueled by strong perimeter defense. Both Drexel and Towson made just 4 of 23 threes. In the final, UNC-Wilmington made just 4 of 15.

“We had to get back to some basics defensively,” coach Martin Ingelsby said Thursday before his team took the floor. “We had a really, really hard three days [before] the CAA Tournament. We practiced at 7 a.m. Wednesday morning, came back and practiced in the afternoon. And I really challenged our guys and said, if we don’t get better on the defensive end, the season is going to be over pretty quickly. I think our guys needed to hear that. They needed to fight for each other. We needed to get back to some hard days on the basketball court where we challenged our guys. We competed, we mixed up the jerseys.”

Ingelsby said he thinks that all resonated, that they have some fifth-year guys … “they’re old, they’re mature, they talked about being in this position” — meaning being in this place, on this day.

“I said, ‘You guys, I believe we’re the best basketball team in the CAA,’” Ingelsby said. “Like, we have to play like that now or it’s over.”

Being the lower seed, wearing their road jerseys ... old hat now.

“We look good in them blue jerseys,” said Blue Hens fifth-year guard Ryan Allen. “I think we’ve kind of taken on the underdog role and embraced it.”

All the local connections on the Blue Hens, from their coach who grew up loving Villanova as the son of a Final Four Wildcats starter, to a Villanova transfer big man (Dylan Painter), to a stretch four from West Chester East (Andrew Carr) who scored 17 points in the CAA championship game, to a Haverford School graduate with a famous father (Jameer Nelson Jr.) all underscore how Delaware is itself local, the closest NCAA team to Villanova’s campus.

One difference between these two: Delaware had 10 days between games, plenty of time to rest up from the CAA run and get past any emotional hangover from winning it. Villanova had three nail-biters before it won the Big East title Saturday and Wright used the word “exhausted” Sunday to describe his team.

“One thing Coach preached on Selection Sunday was for nobody to go in the gym the next day and for everybody to take time to focus on something else, that way we can refresh our minds and be ready to go for this tournament,” said fifth-year forward Jermaine Samuels. “That’s probably the biggest thing he’s harped on. Honestly just for our mental — it’s a good thing for us and it’ll help us prepare for this tournament and this game.”

Hard to stay away?

“It is hard to stay out of the gym, but you’ve got to know that it’s for your own good,” Samuels said. “It’s definitely not easy. You can’t stop thinking about basketball.”

“I know it kind of sounds funny, but we literally have to kind of negotiate and argue with them to not come in the gym,” Wright said. “I really had to monitor — guys just want to get in and shoot. We kept them out of the gym Monday. You know what, a couple guys might have snuck in I don’t know about. I really worry about that.”

Wright said he wanted to “talk to them about the Ukraine war and what was going on in the world” to get away from hoops talk.

“My assistants and my wife told me, ‘You’re crazy, leave them alone,’” Wright said.

Villanova has history in early rounds in Pittsburgh, good and bad. The 2018 NCAA title run started in Pittsburgh. The 2015 NCAA Tournament started and ended in this building, with a second-round loss to North Carolina State.

All ancient history, good and bad.

“I’m not going to lie, I remember freshman year but I don’t remember this arena, per se,’’ Gillespie said. “We might have been in a different locker room, though.”

On Friday, the Delaware Blue Hens enter PPG Paints Arena and Villanova’s NCAA history books, maybe as a footnote, maybe as a memorable chapter.

Beyond his anxieties about the opponent, Wright said, “I think we’re ready.”