Does Milwaukee have what it takes to beat 'Nova?

Jay Wright has done this long enough that the truths about the NCAA tournament are no longer mysteries that need to be unwrapped. Seasons come and seasons go, but what it takes to advance deep into the national championship tournament remains the same.

"First, you have to play well. Period. After that, it's matchups," Wright said as the No. 2-seeded Wildcats prepared for a Thursday opener against Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Matching up well against the opponents that fall into your path is where luck enters the equation. A year ago, when Villanova was a good team on a decent roll, the Wildcats had two troubling deficiencies - they didn't defend the three-point shot well and they were prone to turnovers.

Their opening game, unfortunately, was against North Carolina, not a great team, but a guard-oriented team that shot efficiently from range and took advantage of turnovers. It was a bad matchup. The Tar Heels made 11 three-pointers in the game, Villanova committed 15 turnovers, and the tournament ended quickly for the Wildcats.

This time around, Villanova arrives with a much better team and a chance, it would appear, of slipping into the cold waters of the tournament a little more easily. Milwaukee went on an impressive four-game winning streak to earn the automatic qualifier spot from the Horizon League, but the Panthers still have an RPI ranking well over 100, a tendency to suffer offensive lulls, and a lack of experience on a big stage. This is their first time in the NCAA tournament in eight seasons.

What does all that mean? Not nothing, but not everything, either.

"If I was playing Villanova, I'd say, 'OK, they're 28-4. Let's look at the four games they lost and see what the teams did,' " Wright said. "One team played zone. One team stayed with all the perimeter guys. I would say that's probably what most [coaches] are going to do."

The team that played zone and beat Villanova was Syracuse, which plays its sliding 2-3 zone as well as if not better than any other team in the country. The Milwaukee Panthers aren't going to pick that up in three days.

Two of the other losses were against Creighton, which shot 56.9 percent and 64.2 percent in those games to effectively run the Wildcats out of the building. The Panthers probably don't have that option, either.

It is the other loss, the one in the Big East tournament to Seton Hall, that coach Rob Jeter will study the hardest. Jeter was an assistant for 10 seasons under Wisconsin's Bo Ryan, so he knows something about defense. The Panthers were the best three-point defending team in the Horizon League this season (31.5 percent), their one notable statistic. Of course, they were defending mostly against Horizon League players, but nevertheless, if Jeter is going to hang his hat on something to beat Villanova, it is a good bet to be that.

The Wildcats' offense is built heavily on taking three-point shots. Among the 68 teams in the tournament field, only Creighton (which has played one more game) has taken more three-pointers than Villanova (812 to 801) this season. In the average game, the Wildcats make nine three-pointers, more than one-third of their overall field goals.

"We probably take a higher percentage of threes than any team in the country," Wright said.

That's not true, but they take a lot, and defending the line is one way to beat them.

Seton Hall went that route in Villanova's Big East opener. The Pirates camped on the three-point line and held the Wildcats to a 4-of-19 game on three-pointers. That didn't win the game for Seton Hall, but it helped. They also needed to be lucky enough to run into the Wildcats on a day when they missed 10 free throws and played lackluster defense in the first half to dig a big hole.

That gets back to Wright's first rule of tournament play: You have to play.

"You can't have a game where you're flat, because you're playing against a team that, the percentages tell you, is going to play a good game, because they wouldn't have gotten there otherwise," Wright said.

It remains to be seen whether that holds true with UWM. The Panthers have played some good games this season, but have also played some stinkers. Perhaps it is worth noting - getting back to their three-point defense - that when the Panthers played Cleveland State, the best three-point shooting team in the Horizon, Milwaukee lost by 28 and 24 points, and Cleveland State shot a combined 46 percent from range.

Again, what does that mean? Take a guess. That's all there is at this time of year.

Villanova is guessing that if it plays well, there will be another game after the opener.

That's a pretty good guess. But the game will still take place as scheduled, just to find out for sure.

@bobfordsports