Nova Report
The 6-4 Villanova Wildcats are on campus to take on 4-7 Fairleigh Dickinson at 7:00 pm eastern on FS1. Nova is -28.5/151.
FDU comes off of a 98-54 drubbing of Lehman. In addition to that win, they’ve beaten Vermont Tech, Manhattan and Purchase. They rank 358th of 365 D-1 schools on defense. Villanova returns off of a 94-65 beating of Temple where they drilled a school record 19 3 point shots.
FDU shoots 34.8% from 3 primarily by guards Terrence Brown (21.7 ppg) and Dylan Jones (12.6 ppg, 40% from 3). 6’8” Bismarck Nsiah is a competent rebounder and shot blocker. They don’t foul a lot and don’t rebound well, especially on the offensive glass. For Villanova, Eric Dixon is their horse as he’s the second leading scorer in the nation. Brickus has been coming into his own at point guard. Their bench has shown promise with Perkins and Parker stepping up their game. Poplar actually played unselfish ball vs. Temple which hopefully he’ll do tonight, also. After this game, the Cats go into Conference play so expect the reserves to log in some minutes.
There is no way Nova can continue their torrid 3 point shooting so they should go inside for points. They will once again focus on defense and will hold FDU under 70 points. For FDU, they need to blister the nets from 3. As they have just two players who can do that, Nova should be able to neutralize at least one of them.
After watching the Duke reserves kill a cover last night vs. Incarnate Word, I was hesitating pulling the trigger here. But…I did!
Nova Pick: Villanova-28 (bought hook)
Nova Pick Record:5-5