During Selection Sunday, Philadelphia fans dreamed of a potential Holy War / Big Five 3rd round matchup between St. Joseph's and Villanova. However by the time Saturday rolled around and the round of 32 ended UConn would have none of that. Thursday the Huskies ousted the Hawks in OT after trailing by 10 in the first half. Saturday with a Sweet 16 appearance on the line in Buffalo the Huskies knocked Villanova out of the NCAA Tournament. UConn will be headed to New York City on Friday to take on Iowa State at Madison Square Garden. Shabazz Napier the Huskies senior guard led UConn to a pair of weekend victories in Western New York. Napier hit clutch shots vs. the Big Five best, made free throws done the stretch as well as key passes to open teammates. The kid even came back from a calf injury to close out Nova. Villanova since their 2009 Final Four run has only 2 NCAA Tournament wins, exited in their 1st game twice and exited in the round of 32 twice. Villanova going forward has to get it right come tournament time. Jay Wright has an excellent recruiting class coming in and will only lose 2 seniors who play significant minutes. The key stretch for Nova is when up by 10 (19-9) they went 11 minutes in the 1st half without scoring ! All this while Napier was on the bench with 2 fouls. Nova went into halftime down 1, however for UConn that felt like a victory in itself. My oh my, Napier sealed the deal in the 2nd half for the time he missed in the first half and helped the Huskies and head coach Kevin Ollie move on.
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