PITTSBURGH — An awful lot of points. An awful lot of assists. And very few turnovers.
It’s not an easy combination of trends to combine, and it’s a combination that helps explain why Villanova has been so good this year.
The Wildcats are 21st in NCAA Division I in scoring. They’re 13th in assists. They’re seventh in assist-to-turnover ratio. And they’re 35th in fewest turnovers.
No wonder they’re 32-2.
“That’s something we definitely harp on,” sophomore forward Josh Hart said. “Playing hard but playing smart.
“Keeping turnovers down is big. It’s huge. That could be a six-point swing. That could be you going down and getting a three, but instead you turn it over and then they go down and get a three or a bucket and a foul.
“It takes away your opportunity to get points and gives them easy ones. It definitely kills a team. It kills a team’s momentum and it’s something we’re really trying to keep getting better at and make sure we keep those turnovers down.”
Top-seeded Villanova opens play at 6:50 p.m. Thursday in the NCAA Tournament East Regional against No. 16 Lafayette at the CONSOL Energy Center (see game notes).
It’s been a magical year for Villanova, which heads into the tourney on a 15-game winning streak.
And the key has been the heady play of Ryan Arcidiacono and Dylan Ennis, who man the point, along with freshman Phil Booth. All three have at least twice as many assists as turnovers, and Arcidiacono is ranked 40th nationally with 2.48 assists for every turnover.
Only 107 players in Division I have twice as many assists as turnovers, so for one school to have three speaks volumes. Darrun Hilliard isn’t far behind, with 1.8 assists per turnover.
“Once I came in as a freshman, Darrun and I worked out so much together, we have three years of experience playing together, so we’re just really comfortable on the court and just kind of knowing our tendencies,” Arcidiacono said before Villanova’s practice Wednesday.
“It’s not something we’ve talked much about — ‘We have to cut down our turnovers’ — I just think it’s come with having experience together.”
This is Jay Wright’s 14th year at Villanova, and the Wildcats’ 15.9 assists per game and 10.9 turnovers per game are both the best numbers of his tenure.
As recently as 2013, the Wildcats had 120 more turnovers than assists. This year, they have 172 more assists than turnovers.
“I think that's something that this group is doing better than some of our other groups,” Wright said. “We've had some very good teams offensively, but taking care of the ball and still creating turnovers is something that this group's probably been the best that we had.
“Part of that assist-to-turnover ratio, obviously, is us making the right offensive decisions too. Taking care of the ball, but making the right offensive decisions.”
And when you have smart, disciplined guards, you can do some pretty special things.
“Coach always tells us, ‘Don’t ever lose your aggression,’” Ennis said. “He’d rather tell us to calm it down than be more aggressive, and I think that’s where it comes from.
“He gives us confidence, and when you have confidence in something, it just flows. Our turnover-assist ratio is good because we’re confident in what we’re doing and we know Coach is confidence in us too.”
Lafayette is also among the best in Division I in assist-turnover ratio, and maybe it’s not a coincidence, considering coach Fran O’Hanlon is a Villanova graduate and long-time friend of Wright.
“Their statistics are unreal,” O’Hanlon said Wednesday. “They share the basketball. I think they have 150 more assists than they do turnovers, which is an incredible amount, the plus-minus there.”
Hart, the Big East Sixth Man of the Year, said Villanova has been disciplined and smart with the ball because it practices at such a high level.
“It’s not like we’ve had 34 games to get better, we’ve had 100 days of practice to get better,” he said. “When you have the whole team buying in and playing hard at practice, giving you a look you’re going to see in the actual game, that really prepares you.
“I don’t think there’s another team that we’ve played that’s tougher than ourselves in practice, so when you have that, you’re learning every day and I think that’s why we’ve been able to really cut down on turnovers and pick up the assists. We’re just practicing at such a high level.”
Here’s all you need to know about Villanova: The Wildcats have one of the top 23 scorers in the Big East, but two of the top nine in assists and two of the top five in assist-to-turnover ratio.
“I just think that we're just comfortable with each other,” Hilliard said. “We have confidence in each other, and we're always on the attack. We're always aggressive and I think that that helps because we're so aggressive that we're not turning the ball over.
“And we share the ball because we know each person is going to make the right play.”