Pennsylvania Screw Job: DePaul Loses in Overtime at Villanova

Big East Game, Uncategorized 4 Minutes

The Zebras Did the Demons No Favors

DePaul can play with anyone.  No one intimidates the Blue Demons.  This team has been in every game.  Tonight, the DePaul Blue Demons were screwed.  Screwed terribly.  Improbably, the Men in Blue took the 14th ranked, Villanova Wildcats, to overtime, losing after Villanova took 8 free throws in overtime.  The most egregious were the first set of ‘fouls’ called.  But alas, let’s dwell on that later, in the Bad, Bad section.

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Down eleven with 2:10 to go in regulation, Charlie Moore hits a three, Paul Reed hustles to get a jump ball, Jaylen Butz catches a tough pass and hits a two.  DePaul forces another turnover.  Egregious foul called on Reed (when I thought the game was over.)  Incredible steal by Reed and a monster dunk.  Gillespie travels horribly, but since we are in Villanova, there was a foul called on Reed.  He made one of two.  Jalen Coleman-Lands hits a 3, his first of the game to cut it to two.  DePaul traps the Wildcats who throw it away.  The Demons call a timeout and let Charlie be Charlie who delivered.  DePaul then stopped Villanova on their last gasp effort, which brought us to overtime.

Overtime

DePaul started overtime with two awful possession, while Villanova was gifted with the following possessions, which added up to 4 free points.  Compare this to the first of 2 consecutive fouls called on the first 2 possessions of the second half when DePaul hosted Seton Hall and Charlie Moore picked up two push off fouls.  Which is worse?  Maybe no calls across the board would be the answer, but instead 4 calls against the Demons.

Jalen Coleman-Lands then set up Romeo Weems for an alley-oop, which looked like Weems had been hit off the ball by Gillespie, missing the shot.  Moore stole a ball and made a layup.   ‘Nova made their first field goal of the session.  JCL hit his 2nd 3-pointer of the night to make it a one point game.  Villanova made a contested layup and after an exchange of turnovers, Charlie Moore was fouled.

Astonishingly, the Blue Demons were still in a One-and-One situation, and Moore missed the front end.  Weems blocked a dunk and Saddiq Bey turned the ball over, which set up a JCL three point shot.  JCL was short.  Reed blocked a Justin Moore shot with eleven seconds left, and ‘Nova fouled Charlie Moore to make sure that DePaul would not get a 3 off.

Moore made the front end, and intentionally missed the 2nd, and the Demons failed to get the rebound.  DePaul fouled with less than a second which brought the end game score.

I am going to go in reverse order and hit the Bad first.

The Bad

Why Was there Such a Foul and Free-Throw Discrepancy?

Villanova took 21 free-throws and made 18.  DePaul took 10 free-throws and made 6.  The tape does not lie.  This was a screw job to the very end.

In the first half, when the Blue Demons were pounding the ball inside with tons of contact, DePaul drew two fouls and took two free-throws.  Two!

Meanwhile, a struggling Villanova team were gifted 9 fouls and 9 free-throw attempts.  The seven makes kept them in the game as the Demons quality defense made it difficult for the Wildcats to get open shots.

Hilariously, it truly seemed like the referees saw the discrepancy and said to themselves, “we need to get this right in the second half.”  The crew then called 4 fouls in the first 4 minutes on the ‘Cats, and then ridiculously called only 5 fouls the rest of the game, including overtime.  DePaul was shooting one and ones down the stretch while getting hacked, while Villanova was getting 2 shots while instigating the fouls.

This has been said before, but basketball is a game of possessions.  Villanova’s 21 free-throws translate to 10.5 possessions.  On those possessions, the ‘Cats made 1.7 points per possession, which would be the best offense in the entire world.  To contrast that with 3-pointers, ‘Nova made 11 3-pointers on 28 shots.   That works out to 1.18 points per possession.  1.7 is way better than 1.18.  This was obnoxiously bad.  I will leave you with 2 fouls on DePaul.  One is Nick Ongenda catching a ball, and the other is Paul Reed getting held and trying to get to a ball.  If both of these go the correct way, DePaul is shooting 2 shot fouls in overtime.  It all matters.  Every decision matters.

This will all be forgotten tomorrow, but I want all of you to know, that the Men in Blue gave it their all.  They lost, yes, but they left it all on the floor when everyone was against them.

Villanova Free-Throws

Looking at the box score will truly make a Blue Demons fan sick.  Gillespie was held completely under control, but was gifted 10 free throws.  The one point that Villanova had during the DePaul 12-1 run to end regulation, Gillespie took 3 steps and then ran into Paul Reed and they called the foul on Reed.  The travel happened first for the love of God.

DePaul Turnovers

DePaul had 17 turnovers, which is slightly above their season average.  It wasn’t insane by any means, but it didn’t help.  Reed lead the team with turnovers, but if you watched each possession at least 2 of the turnovers where Paul trying to corral a difficult pass and Villanova tipping the ball off of him.  In other words, Reed busted his ass and bad things happened outside of his control

The Good

Charlie Moore Had His Best Game at DePaul

Moore was awesome.  He was 5-10 from 2 and 5-7 from 3.  He willed the Demons back from the abyss.  A 2-1 assist to turnover ration is decent against a team that generates steals.   He also had 3 steals.  He finished with 29 points!

Jaylen Butz

Butz had 16 points and 6 rebounds finishing with an offensive rating of 111.

Paul Reed

Reed was screwed by the refs tonight and had bad luck on 50-50 balls.  He ended up with 18 points and 15 rebounds to go with 5 steals and 2 blocks.  He was dominate.

Who’s Next?

Butler, Unfortunately.

DePaul cannot get a break.  The Demons host the best team in the Big East on Saturday.

I will be there torturing my family.  Will you?

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Published by PatrickSperry

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