March 01, 2016
Without having any access to the DePaul locker room, you can imagine that Dave Leitao’s scouting report didn’t involve leaving Kris Jenkins open beyond the arc. After some early season struggles, the 6’6” junior is shooting 40 percent from three-point range in conference play.
Yet when a team as down as DePaul (9-20) plays a team as good as Villanova (26-4), they generally have to give up something defensively. That is how a good shooter like Jenkins can be free to go bombs away. He finished with a career-high 31 points on 8-14 shooting from deep.
In the third-ranked Wildcats’ final game of the season in the friendly confines of The Pavilion, Villanova shot 14-31 from deep en route to a 83-62 win. With the victory, they clinch their third consecutive Big East regular season title. We’ll be back with with more extensive coverage later, but for now, a few other quick thoughts:
• The Wildcats, who couldn’t build on the lead for long stretches of this one, didn’t submit a perfect performance by any means. They built a comfortable working margin by hitting DePaul with a couple of quick knockout blows in the first half, runs of 11-1 and 14-0.
• This was Ryan Arcidiacono and Daniel Ochefu’s last game in The Pavilion, and they closed their careers with a 39th straight victory on campus. As Larry David would say, “pretty, pretty good.”
Follow Rich on Twitter: @rich_hofmann
