V for Victory Indeed

Last night's Villanova game was, for most of it, a horrible reminder of their upset loss to Old Dominion back in 1995. Same deal, too. 'Nova a 3 seed, and the scrappy veteran 14th ranked squad from south of the mason dixon line hanging around, giving the Wildcats fits, etc..

In fact, I had the same sick feeling last night as I did back then. There was especially a moment in the 2nd half, about 18 minutes to go, where AU missed a big 3 that i thought would have blown the game wide open.  AU just ran out of gas at the end.

Really, the huge benefit Villanova had was playing at home and preventing a neutral crowd from tilting toward the underdog.

Someon (Phil Sheridan?) suggested that a loss last night would have been more devastating than the one in 1995. I completely disagree. The loss to ODU - in triple OT no less - was a HUGE disaster and watershed moment for Villanova.

Remember, the '95 squad had won the NIT championship the year before and was poised for big things in the tournament the following year. Indeed, they blew UConn off the court in the Big East tournament final - their rubber match with the Huskies that year - to win the conference championship only 5 days before.

The loss really exposed Lappas as a mediocre game coach, Eric Eberz as a big game choke artist (a role he reprised in the tournament the following year), really gave the whole team a tightness on the big stage that took years to undo, and prompted Lappas to take a flyer on the highly touted Tim Thomas, essentially bargaining that Thomas and his expected one year stint at the school was the missing ingredient to a Final Four worthy team and to avoid squandering Kerry Kittles', Jason Lawson's and Alvin Woodward's senior season. Instead, the Thomas recruitment  undermined the chemistry of the team and sowed confusion over who was the go-to guy, the Parade All-american and projected lottery pick, or the actual college All-american and one of the school's all-time greats.

Suffice to say i was a drunken mess the night of the triple OT debacle...which occurred on St. Patrick's Day no less. I vaguely recall switching to white russians after the keg was kicked and the game was headed into OT. Only to be tossing the empty barrel around the fenced in city patio after ODU had shocked the Main Line.