Men’s Basketball: ‘Wolves Come Up Small Against Big East Powerhouse Villanova

By Henry Danner

The sellout crowd of 4,285 left the Stony Brook Sports Complex with a first hand impression of Big East basketball as the Seawolves took a 72-44 whooping from the Villanova Wildcats.

The Wildcats got off to an early start with a 7-0 run that forced Coach Pikiel to burn a 30 second timeout with 18:20 left in the period. “Our guys were nervous, they never played in an atmosphere like this,” said Pikiel. “You never want to start out a game like that.” 

The ‘Wolves had a tough time breaking Villanova’s suffocating 2-1-2 press. By the 17:50 mark they had already turned the ball over three times. “We were going too fast, we got to slow the ball down,” said starting guard Mitch Beauford. By the end of the night the Seawolves had eighteen turnovers.

The highlight of the night came on a broken fast break that lead to an emphatic, crowd-pleasing slam dunk by Andre Vanterpool off of the Mitch Beauford alley-oop pass. The play got the crowd energized but the score was still 15-4, Villanova.

The Seawolves’ perimeter defensive problems from Tuesday night’s loss to UMES carried over into tonight’s game. Villaova’s first twenty-four points of the night all came from the perimeter. Fifteen of those twenty-four points came from beyond the arc. 

On top of their early defensive struggles, the Seawolves could not find their groove offensively. They shot a pathetic thirty-five percent from the field on 19 of 54 shooting. “I’m not sure if we were quite ready to play a team like this,” said Coach Pikiel. Their offense was often very stagnant, with no movement.  Players like Eddie Castellanos and Mitch Beauford were trying to create off the dribble rather than moving the ball around the court.

The Seawolves fell behind early and just did not have enough firepower to match the Villanova Wildcats’ offensive and defensive capacity. ‘Nova controlled the tempo for the first half and the Seawolves fell into Villanova’s trap by trying to match their speed. 

“We played right into their hands,” said Beauford. Instead of trying to establish their own game plan the Seawolves tried to match Villanova’s run and gun style of basketball.

The ‘Wolves were out rebounded 44-27. A hyped up Seawolve crowd watched the Wildcats as they operated like a well-oiled machine. Although they committed fifteen turnovers, they also had thirteen assists compared to Stony Brook’s mere five.

There were a few bright spots following this loss to a nationally ranked powerhouse program.

They got great minutes out of their bench. Freshman Brandon Hickson and junior Ryan Jones played a combined twenty seven minutes. Andre Vanterpool, who was starting for injured star Ricky Lucas, also contributed in ways that are valuable to the team’s progression.

“He’s a great leader,” said Pikiel of Andre. The Seawolves also got the opportunity to play in a regionally televised game on a major network (MSG) in front of a sold out crowd. They learned lessons in ball control, shot selection, and how to handle playing in a big game on their home court. 

One thing that the ‘Wolves have to look forward to is the amount of potential that their young team possesses.