THE GOOD
Antonio Pena - A special shout-out for Mr. Pena tonight, as he became just the 19th player in the history of the program to notch 1,000 points and 700 rebounds. He may have frustrated us more than a few times over his time at Villanova, but god damn, those are impressive numbers. I had no idea he was putting up stats like that! Well done 'Tone!
Mouphtaou Yarou - We've vented and vented about the lack of production from Big Mouph, but there's no complaining after tonight. Yes, Jae Crowder and Jimmy Butler are undersized a bit. And Chris Otule is not good, but Mouph dominated, and Butler and Crowder have given BIG EAST frontcourts FITS all year. I was very impressed with him.
By the way, Yarou was 8-10 from the line and Pena was 8-9. You think when you foul the bigs you're going to get some help. Not with our bunch.
Retro Jerseys - I love those things! Break those out more than once a year please!
Corey Fisher - 17 points, 6 assists, 4 steals (and just 3 turnovers) - thought he was very, very good, and I didn't notice him that much until I looked at his stat line. Sign me up for that every night.
Defense - Darius Johnson-Odom had just 15 points on 21 shots. Jae Crowder was held to 9. Butler to just 15 in his 38 minutes played. That's a very good job of not letting the stars beat us. DJO's case, you could tell he was getting extremely frustrated. Great to see.
THE BAD
Blowing a 14-point lead - That just cannot happen. The focus on this team has been pretty good all year, so I'll chalk it up to still shaking off the crap that killed us vs. Providence and Georgetown. But at that point, I would hope we can safely say the game is over. Yikes.
Isaiah Armwood Gets T'd - This goes in the Good/Bad category for me. I never want to see one of our guys get T'd up for jawing, which he did. But ya know what? I f*cking love the way Zeek plays. I don't care that he got T'd (it was long overdue this season). Jay Wright sat him right down after too and he wasn't to return last night. But he got Jae Crowder a technical in the process (his 4th foul) and Crowder fouled out on a cheapie under a minute later. Well done Zeek!
THE UGLY
The Play-By-Play Guy - What was his name? LaPhonso Ellis wasn't AWFUL on the color (okay, he was pretty bad) but whoever the lead guy was - JUST BRUTAL!!! Anonymous Eagle covered this in their postgame as well. I don't know how you screw up so many names. Dwight Buycks was 'Dykes' more than once and Pena was Peeeena. How does that guy have a job?
Dominic Cheek - Clearly in the dog house. He's just coming back from an injury, I know. But he played 3 minutes last night, and Jay Wright clearly wasn't happy with his defense. We need him to get out of that house and back to killin' it for us. We'll need him in March.
We're off the snide baby! See you on Saturday when we take on the West Virginia Mountaineers!