Villanova Basketball: Another Tough Loss for the Wildcats Against Louisville

Perhaps no single player in the Big East is as important to his team as Maalik Wayns.  They say that one player doesn't win or lose a game, but Wayns seems to defy that trend.  That was the story of Wednesday night's 84-74 loss at Louisville.

The Wildcats played a great first half, leading 44-39 at the break.  Wayns had nine points in 14 minutes.  James Bell scored 11, going 5-of-5 from the field while pulling down nine rebounds.  The Wildcats had three other players with at least five points in the first half.

When Villanova gets scoring from players other than Wayns, they become very hard to beat.  The problem was Wayns was whistled for three fouls in the first half.  Just 1:41 into the second half, Wayns was called for a questionable charge, relegating him to the bench for the next 8:17. 

In that time, Louisville outscored Villanova 19-7, taking a 61-51 lead.  When Wayns came back in, the Wildcats went on a 14-6 run of their own, getting to within two at 67-65.  In the end, Louisville was too much to overcome.  The Wildcats won at St. John's after trailing by 10, but it's too difficult to topple big leads on the road.

To show the stark contrast in play with and without Wayns, Villanova scored 44 points in the first half, shooting 49 percent from the field.  They had seven assists as a team to just five turnovers.  In the second, they shot just 30 percent, turning the ball over eight times against just three assists.

Offensively, they just have no punch with Wayns off the floor.  Despite playing just 10 minutes, he still scored 10 of their 30 second-half points.  He finished the game with 19 points on 7-of-11 shooting.  Outside of Wayns, the 'Cats were just 19-of-55 from the field.

Even losing Wayns for such an extended period, Villanova's young team was able to scrap and fight and stay in the game against a Top 25 team on the road.  For a team trying to find it's way, that is a big step in their development.

Among other bright spots was freshman JayVaughn Pinkston, who registered his third straight double-digit rebounding game, grabbing 12 boards to go along with eight points.  James Bell finished with an impressive 14-point, 13-rebound double-double.

Last but not least is Mouphtaou Yarou.  After a shaky first half, he attempted to put the Wildcats on his back and kept them close, finishing with 10 points and seven boards.

Losing their best player for almost 25 percent of the game was extremely unfortunate, but Villanova is proving they can compete every night.  They fell below .500 to 10-11, but they are progressing and should be able to string some wins together down the stretch.