The Sun’s Arizin: Villanova Basketball 2022 Memorable Stats

Happy Tuesday Nova Nation! 2022 was a great season with tons of memorable moments. And any great season like that is going to come with some pretty impressive stats to back it up. The big one is obviously the free throw record of 83%, and of course there’s Gillespie’s record for most games played at Nova. But there are so many other great ones you may not be aware of. Here are just a few of my favorites from the year that was.

Collin Gillespie went a perfect 9-0 with three championships for his career in the Big East Tournament

Gillespie played in three Big East Tournaments, and walked away as champion in all three. There unfortunately was no tournament in 2020, and Gillespie’s knee injury kept him out of the 2021 tournament where Villanova fell to Georgetown. But in every BET game that Gillespie did play in, he walked away victorious.

Eric Dixon is Villanova’s New 3PT Shooting King

Dixon shot 17 of 35 from behind the arc in 2022 for a team high 48.6% from beyond the arc. But it wasn’t just a team high, that’s a Villanova record for 3PT% on a season with a minimum of 30 shots taken. It just barely broke Phil Booth’s 2015 rookie season record of 48.5% (32 of 66). The official school record with a minimum of 100 shots taken on the season still sits with Mark Plansky at 46.6% from 1988.

Brandon Slater broke the century mark with 100 fouls... and that’s a good thing?

Brandon Slater became the first player in the last six seasons to record 100 fouls on the year. He’s in good company though, as a number of Villanova greats have broken that particular century mark. The last Villanova player to do it was Kris Jenkins in 2016 with 103, and that worked out pretty well. And should Slater return and record another 100 fouls, he’ll become just the third player under Jay Wright to record back to back 100 foul seasons alongside legends Randy Foye and Donte Cunningham.

2022 was Villanova’s 9th consecutive season to be ranked in the Top 10 of the AP Poll

It’s the longest streak of its kind in Villanova history. In three of the nine seasons (‘17, ‘18, ‘22) Villanova both started and ended the season ranked in the Top 10. The Wildcats also hold the 2nd longest active streak for weeks spent in the AP Poll Top 25 at 59, behind only Gonzaga.

We have just witnessed Jay Wright’s slowest team ever

With an adjusted Tempo of 62.3 (347th on the season) and an average possession length of 19.9 seconds (349th), we’ve officially seen the slowest Jay Wright team of all time. There are plenty of fans who often say they’d love to see Nova push the pace a little more. But if you survived watching this season, it can’t get much slower than this. Can it?

We also just witnessed Jay Wright’s best ever perimeter defense at Villanova

Villanova held its opponents to just 30.8% from beyond the arc this season, the 40th best perimeter defense in the country. But for Villanova, it’s the best perimeter defense put up during the Jay Wright era. What makes it even more impressive is that this is also the season where opponents took the highest percentage of their shots from beyond the arc at 42.2% (51st highest in the country).

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