The Sun’s Arizin: Can Villanova Basketball Sweep UConn?

Happy Tuesday Nova Nation! It’s game day once again, but this one is a bit different from the games the Wildcats have come into the past few months. For the first time since playing at Baylor on Dec. 12th, Villanova enters the game as an underdog. KenPom.com gives UConn a one point edge at home, while many Vegas odds makers have bumped that up to two points.

Whether they’re the favorites or the underdogs, Villanova is going to approach this game the same no matter what. Give the credit for that to head coach Jay Wright. But even with his 20 years at the head of the Villanova program, Jay Wright has the opportunity tonight to do something he’s never done before: Sweep UConn.

Villanova has certainly beaten UConn before in a season, heck, they’re on a five game winning streak against the Huskies. But when Jay has faced UConn more than once in a season, he has yet to come out the victor in every opportunity.

Now granted, there haven’t been too many opportunities. COVID took away the home and home last season, and then there was that whole “not being in the conference” thing that UConn tried for a while. In fact, the last time Jay even had this opportunity was back in 2006 when the teams were both highly ranked and ended up splitting their games and the Regular Season Conference Championship.

That’s not to say that Villanova has never swept UConn, because that happened in 2001, the year before Jay showed up on campus. There’s also that stretch of six consecutive sweeps in the 80’s, but that was mostly pre-Calhoun.

In all, Jay has had four opportunities for a multi-game sweep of the Huskies:

• 2002: 0-3
• 2003: 1-1
• 2004: 0-2
• 2006: 1-1

He’ll certainly have more opportunities for the sweep if he doesn’t pick it up tonight, but let’s not forget that a win tonight is important for Villanova to stay in the driver’s seat for the Big East Regular Season Championship.

So I leave it to you Nova Nation, will Villanova pick up the regular season sweep of UConn?

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