Bob Ford: Villanova confident after UConn win

Just when the obituaries for Philadelphia-area college basketball this season were headed toward the final rewrite, the Villanova Wildcats jumped up yesterday and didn't seem so dead after all.

In a game that was somewhat sloppy and more than a little unsettling, if you happen to believe rebounding is important, Villanova hung around and didn't fold in the final, frantic minutes against No. 13 Connecticut.

The result was a 67-65 win, arguably the biggest of the season for Villanova. It evened the Wildcats' record in the Big East at 7-7 and, perhaps more important, gave them additional confidence when they are at a size disadvantage - which is to say, every game.

Connecticut coach Jim Calhoun shrugged and said the more desperate team usually wins at this time of the regular season.

"Villanova needed the win," Calhoun said. "The way they won is they fought for it harder than us."

Perhaps that is all that happened yesterday, and the final sorting at the Big East tournament in two weeks will shuffle out the Wildcats in quick fashion. Playing small - depending entirely on defense and jump shots - is a long walk through the valley of death, even if you fear no evil. But it's a lot better to have someone like Connecticut's 7-foot-3 Hasheem Thabeet walking beside you.

Still, anything is possible. When Villanova was in the midst of losing nine of 12 games and the rest of the local teams didn't seem to be NCAA tournament-worthy, either, this loomed as perhaps the first season since 1976-77 in which none of the six area Division I schools would make the big bracket.

That's reaching a long way back, almost before Rollie Massimino invented the game, and it could still happen. St. Joseph's will probably need to make the championship game of the Atlantic Ten (and maybe win it) to get an invitation. La Salle, Temple, Drexel and Penn are decided long shots.

Villanova? The Wildcats will come into the Big East tournament seeded between seventh and 10th, probably, and, if they survive a first-round game against a similar opponent, will play either the first or second seed in the next round, most likely Georgetown or Louisville.

This is not an encouraging formula, particularly with 6-10 Casiem Drummond's availability still uncertain because of a stress fracture in his right ankle. Without Drummond, the Wildcats are mostly small and mostly young, which is a difficult combination.

"It's based on pain. If he feels pain, he's out," coach Jay Wright said. "If he plays with pain and something breaks, you'd never forgive yourself. We're just going to play like [getting him back] is not going to happen."

Which means they have to play as they did yesterday, contesting every shot and every pass on the defensive end, and hoping the ball goes through the basket from the perimeter on the other. Best of luck.

The turning point for the Wildcats' resurgence, however long it lasts, was the controversial loss at Georgetown.

"I told them that I didn't care that we lost, because it was the first time all year I felt we had played Villanova basketball," Wright said. "Forget the call. Let's enjoy it. But this is a quiet crew. No one ever said, 'We got it now, Coach.' But you could see it coming."

It has turned into a three-game winning streak, an uplifting stretch that will be tested tomorrow night at the Wachovia Center against No. 25 Marquette, and again next Sunday at No. 18 Louisville.

Maybe the more desperate team will win those games, too, but that doesn't always work. It particularly doesn't work for teams that are as badly outrebounded as the Wildcats were yesterday, and those that get to the foul line only 11 times in a game. Desperate is very nice, but arithmetic is better.

There is something to be said for hanging around, however, and that is what Villanova did yesterday. Wright said his players gutted it out, and that is as good a description as any.

When Scottie Reynolds used a high screen from Dante Cunningham and drove the lane with less than a minute to play, Wildcats ahead by two, he knew Thabeet was waiting to bat the shot into the corporate suites. Not intentionally, of course, but Thabeet might have also batted Reynolds up there in the process.

It takes something to make the drive anyway. Reynolds has that something. He went past Thabeet like a cat dodging a streetlight and quickly scooped a shot high off the glass - a "Mike Nardi shot," he said - and the ball drifted down and went silkily through the basket.

Reynolds isn't the only one who has that something, and the toughness is what might carry Villanova farther than it has any right to go.

So, hold the obits. Just for a while. The Wildcats have earned that much.

Stingy defense, plus Scottie Reynolds' sterling offense, propel the Wildcats.

E7.