Article from espn.com on how Villanova set a physcial tone early in their game last Saturday against UCLA. There was nothing dirty or malicious in their intent, they just wanted to play hard.....Twenty-six seconds in, Darren Collison drove to the hoop. Scottie Reynolds met him at the door, knocking Collison hard enough to bloody the UCLA guard's lip. Collison walked away with a smile. Reynolds stood his ground.
Three minutes in, Josh Shipp drove to the hoop. Dante Cunningham met him at the door, slamming Shipp to the ground. Shipp walked over to ask the official about the severity of the foul. Cunningham stood his ground.
Four minutes in, Corey Fisher went end line to end line. Nobody stopped him. The Villanova sophomore spun in the lane and directly to the hoop, sending a rainbow layup into the basket.
The score was 9-6, but Villanova's message to UCLA was abundantly clear: You're not on the West Coast anymore.
Maybe Scottie didn't score a lot of points, but that first play, that set the tone for us," Villanova coach Jay Wright said.
Honestly, if I'm out there and a team is that forceful from the jump, not even worrying about fouling, just going out there like it's a free-for-all, I'm like, 'Whoa, whoa,'" Cunningham said. "I think it would be hard to get your bearings back."
For Villanova, which will head to its fourth Sweet 16 in five years, there is more to this victory than just embarrassing UCLA. When Wright arrived eight years ago, he built his program on defense, offering up offensive freedom to his players in exchange for defensive intensity.
He established an Attitude Club, in which players are awarded for hard-nosed plays like taking charges and diving for loose balls. Players will tell you winning Attitude Club at the end of the season means even more than finishing as the team's highest scorer.
But in February, the Wildcats forgot who they were. Villanova still won, but the Cats fell a little too in love with their offense, scoring 94, 102 and 102 points in succession -- and worse, giving up 91, 85 and 84.
So when Wright gathered his team before this game, he challenged them to play "40 minutes of Villanova basketball," coachspeak for an entire game of withering defensive pressure.
"We had gotten away from that," associate head coach Pat Chambers said. "We were scoring all these points but that's not who we are. That's not who we want to be. I think we really recommitted ourselves before this game.
We wanted 40 minutes."
