Villanova-St. John's Recap (I am the smartest man alive this morning)

Never underestimate the power of stats. A lot of times, we bet with our gut (or even worse, our heart) and it blows up in our face. But if you got into the deeper numbers for Nova-St. Johns, you knew Nova was going to win and you knew how they were going to win. Full post here, but here is the summary of my preview from yesterday:

"Villanova is going to be able to score quite a bit from both inside and outside the three point line"
 The Cats shot 55.7% from the field, made up of 24/38 (63.1%) from two point range and 10/23 (43.5%) from thee point range.

"Despite their tendency to play with guards, Nova crashes the boards"
Villanova outrebounded St. John's 41-21. Jesus. That's even worse than I thought it would be. They almost doubled them up, and they almost tripled them up in offensive rebounds (14-5).

"Daniel Ochefu has been showing off a surprisingly good post game and he will be tested against Chris Obekpa"
Advantage: Ochefu. And in a big way. Chief's stat line was 13 points, 13 rebounds, 4 assists, and just 2 fouls. Obekpa threw up 8 points, 5 rebounds, 3 blocks, and 4 fouls. I really want to take the opportunity here to note that two of Obekpa's blocks were on the same possession (and Ochefu got both rebounds and ended up scoring). Neither big guy played poorly, but Ochefu shooting 6/7 against "the nation's best shot blocker" really made the short shorts look ridiculous.

"SJU doesn't commit a whole lot of fouls, so a lot will depend on the referee crew"
Okay, I missed one. Sir'Dominic Pointer fouled out and Obekpa and Jamal Branch each had 4. This did the Jawnies in at the end - they basically play a 6-man rotation and can't afford foul trouble.

Nova-St Johns preview: -Nova is going to rain 3s and 2s -SJU is going to rain 2s -Nova is going to own the boards -Nova wins easily
— Jason (@jaylike) January 6, 2015

"Nova should cover and I love their team total over 68"

You're welcome.