Game 9: Villanova at Michigan Preview

Michigan hosts Villanova tonight (6:30 p.m., FS1) in its highest-profile non-conference home game of the season.

Kevin Willard’s first season is off to a solid start on the Main Line. The Wildcats lost their season opener to BYU in Las Vegas but have rattled off seven consecutive wins since to move to 35th on KenPom.

Villanova has been consistently covering the KenPom number in these games, but hasn’t faced a team ranked better than 142nd since BYU, and the most impressive wins in this streak are over Temple, Duquesne, and Queens.

It’s not the most talented roster that Willard has ever coached — that was probably his team last year at Maryland — but there’s an intention and a direction set for a program that was rudderless over the previous three seasons.

In a weaker-than-usual Big East, there might be enough there to get the Wildcats back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since Jay Wright retired.

The Wildcats

Offensively, Villanova is playing consistent, efficient basketball against teams it is much better than. The Wildcats are ranked 28th in adjusted offensive efficiency, and have scored 1.25 PPP or better in six of their last seven games.

Nova is shooting 57.4% on twos (49th) and 38% on threes (37th), with an impressive 46.4% (62nd) of shots coming from 3-point range, for a 57.2 effective field goal percentage (28th). Four rotation players have hit 14+ threes already this year, and three of the four are shooting 40%+ from deep. Based on volume and accuracy, this is the best 3-point shooting team that Michigan has faced this season.