The Wildcats have another game to gear up for this week after a disappointing loss on Wednesday night.
The Villanova Wildcats conclude their busy three-game opening week of college basketball with the final contest of this stretch, a Friday night home game against NJIT.
Villanova is coming off of a disappointing 90-80 loss to Columbia on Wednesday night. Before that, it won its season-opener against Lafayette.
NJIT will also be eager to return to the court. The Highlanders squandered a 17-point second-half lead against Penn in its season-opener on Monday night. The Quakers went on a 17-0 run, which turned into a 23-5 game-ending run to seal the 58-57 comeback win for Penn.
Tip-off is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. ET from Finneran Pavilion. The game will also be available on Fox Sports 2.
Here are three things to watch on Friday night:
NJIT’s guard tandem
Last season, Tariq Francis led the Highlanders, with 14.8 points, 4.1 rebounds, 2.6 assists and 1.5 steals per game.
After Francis, NJIT has bid farewell to its next four highest-producing players, but he’s back to lead this newly-rebuilt roster.
The Highlanders don’t have many returners from last season’s 7-21 team, but Francis and teammate Sebastian Robinson are two holdovers that are off to a good start.
Both players scored 20 points apiece and accounted for 40 of NJIT’s 57 points from Monday night. They also shot 62.9% of shot the team’s shot attempts, so it’s safe to say they’ll have an ongoing green light and should dictate most of Villanova’s attention.
Highlanders’ small-ball roster
Friday could be a big night Villanova’s frontcourt.
Maybe head coach Grant Billmeier may tinker around with his starting five or his rotation following Monday’s season-opening loss, but assuming it remains the same, the Highlanders’ starting five doesn’t have a single player taller than 6-foot-7.
Francis is listed at 6-feet tall, with Robinson at 6-1. The rest of the starting five features Jake Goldberg (6-4), Jordan Rogers (6-6) and Levi Lawal (6-7).
Freshman Malachi Arrington did come off the bench, and he appears to be the only player in the rotation to provide some true size upfront at 6-foot-11, but he was in foul trouble. Arrington only played 10 minutes and fouled out.
Villanova’s response to Wednesday night
When asked what concerns after two games that Kyle Neptune feels could be fixed, following the Columbia loss, Neptune didn’t give much of a clear answer.
“Yeah, if we won that game, we would still have to get a lot better,” Neptune said. “We’re just not where we need to be right now. We have to go back, watch this film, learn from it, move on and get better. We have a lot of things to get better on.”
The offense looked stagnant at times, but defense was in worse shape. The Wildcats gave up 90 points against a team that hadn’t touched that mark in five years. They allowed Columbia to outscore them in the paint, 36-24, and the Lions got to the line a bunch in the second half, drilling 21-of-22 second-half free-throw attempts.
Eric Dixon dropped 33 points in his season debut, which sounds like the winning recipe by itself, but the ‘Cats couldn’t contain the Lions.
Will there be any improvement on Friday night? Sure, it’s a new-look roster, and there will be some bumps, but that can’t excuse a loss to Columbia.