Villanova’s careless ballhandling, offensive struggles, and other takeaways from blowout loss to Michigan

Villanova had its winning streak reach seven games when it blew out Penn Saturday night in the Big 5 Classic championship game. A season-opening loss to nationally ranked Brigham Young in Las Vegas was followed by a stretch of games where Kevin Willard’s Wildcats didn’t have any blips.

They beat their next seven opponents by an average margin of 19.7 points, and at 7-1 entering this week even made it onto an Associated Press Top 25 voter’s ballot as they climbed to KenPom’s 35th-ranked team by adjusted efficiency. But those wins all came against teams ranked 142nd or lower by KenPom metrics.

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The tuneups were over, and it was time for a test. Perhaps the biggest test of all: against No. 2 Michigan, a team that has been a buzz saw of sorts through the first five weeks of the college basketball season.

Villanova learned that the hard way Tuesday night in Ann Arbor, where the Wildcats were run off the floor in a 89-61 defeat.

Here’s what we learned from Villanova’s step up in competition:

Let’s get out of the way first how good Michigan is. The Wolverines are the No. 1 team at both of the main college hoops metrics sites, KenPom and Torvik. They ran through the Players Era tournament in Vegas a few weeks ago with wins of 40, 30, and 40 points over San Diego State, Auburn, and Gonzaga, the third-ranked team at KenPom and Torvik.

Then, Michigan started Big Ten play Saturday with a 101-60 victory over Rutgers.

Dusty May has built a team that will compete for a national title, and one that could be capable of historic stuff along the way.

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That being said, Villanova wasn’t nearly good enough, and it started right away with a deer-in-headlights start that enabled Michigan to pull away early.

What you can’t do against the best defensive team in the country is give away possessions, and Villanova did that way too often.

Freshman point guard Acaden Lewis had two turnovers in the first five minutes. Villanova watched as its best defensive possession ended with a Michigan offensive rebound and put-back. Then came a lazy pass from Bryce Lindsay to Tafara Gapare that led to a runaway dunk by Yaxel Lendeborg that upped Michigan’s lead to 19-7.

Willard called timeout, and the ensuing inbound resulted in a 10-second violation. Michigan scored at the other end on another second-chance basket and its lead was 21-7.

Villanova turned it over 10 times in the first half, far too often to have a chance against this type of opponent, and 15 times overall. Six Wildcats each had two turnovers. On the night, Michigan had 15 offensive rebounds to Villanova’s six.

Defense has been a problem for the Wildcats over the first five weeks of the season, even against some lighter competition. But offense hasn’t been very worrisome.

Until Tuesday.

Again, Michigan is the best defensive team in the country with its mixture of size, length, and athleticism, but Villanova is going to face some pretty good defenses in the Big East, and there were some concerning things Tuesday night.

Michigan took Lewis and Lindsay out of the game. If not for the isolation skills of Devin Askew, it might have been 53-13 at halftime instead of 53-23. This was Lewis’ first real test since he was benched vs. BYU in the opener, and he wasn’t good enough at getting Villanova into its offense, though he got better as the game went on (and was already out of reach).

The Wildcats normally get assists on 57.7% of their makes. They had just six assists on 21 makes Tuesday (28.6%), and one of them came on a last-second three-pointer.

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Michigan, with its length, took away Villanova’s chances at the rim, and the Wildcats were forced to bomb away from three-point range, especially when they started trailing. They made just 10 of their 37 attempts.

“You try to,” Willard told reporters Tuesday when asked if creating threes was the plan. “But it’s not easy against a very connected defensive team.

“Everyone talks about their offense, but everything is predicated on their defense.”

Part of Villanova’s problems on offense came from the issues that may pop up against better competition. Willard had to decide what he had tolerance for. Lewis and Lindsay were getting beat defensively, but reserves Malachi Palmer and Gapare offered little help offensively.

The second unit on the floor meant that only Askew could be relied on for offense.

Beyond that, it’s apparent that Willard doesn’t think backup big man Braden Pierce is ready to contribute. He’s Villanova’s only 7-footer, and against a Michigan team that has 7-3 center Aday Mara, Pierce barely saw the floor. Neither did Temple transfer Zion Stanford, who logged just three minutes. Stanford only recently returned from an ankle injury, but he is playing just 6.6 minutes per game.

Granted, the game got out of reach fast, but it still seems like Willard is trying to figure out his best mix of players, and that will be something to monitor moving forward.

Tuesday was the kind of game that doesn’t hurt when you lose and really helps when you win.

Up next is the opposite. Villanova welcomes Pittsburgh to the Finneran Pavilion Saturday, and while the ACC school isn’t one of the cupcakes that have been on Villanova’s schedule to date, the Panthers aren’t very good. Villanova will be expected to win, but it will be another chance to see the new-look Wildcats against a power conference foe.

From there, only a Dec. 19 trip to Milwaukee to face a solid Wisconsin team separates Villanova from its Big East opener on Dec. 23 at Seton Hall.

The real games are underway, and the Wildcats took a big punch Tuesday.