Just as we suspected, this one wasn't much more than a quick sweat for the Villanova Wildcats as they demolished the Lafayette Leopards 86-47 on Saturday night. The difference in talent was evident from the get-go as Maalik Wayns and Corey Fisher found it all too easy to break the Lafayette zone and find teammates for easy buckets.
Corey Stokes led all scorers with 19 points to go along with 4 rebounds and 3 assists as he finally found is rhythm, knocking down 5 3-pointers and shooting 50% from the field.
Mouphtaou Yarou had the best game of his young career, recording 12 points, 12 rebounds (6 offensive!), and an assist. He was the lone Wildcat to miss a free throw though.
Once again though, the real story was the defense. Lafayette may be the the worst team we play all year, but the fact remains the team has reinvented itself defensively. Lafayette's two best players, Ryan Willen and Jared Mintz, went 2-11 and 4-11 respectively. Jim Mower went 3-9.
The Leopards shot 14.3% from beyond the arc. They shot 25% from the field overall. Those aren't just good numbers for a defense, those are flat out dominating stats.
It's just what we wanted to see on a night when anything less than this type of performance would have been a letdown. The Dream was in attendance last night, so I'm sure he'll have some more thoughts on this game.
Villanova faces UCLA on Wednesday night at Madison Square Garden in the semifinals of The Preseason NIT. Tip is at 9 p.m. ET.