Villanova One Win From Final Four After Another Easy Victory

Sure, why not pic.twitter.com/4KK0PAnYV0

— Deadspin (@Deadspin) March 24, 2016

The shot clock was winding down. Villanova’s Kris Jenkins had the ball closer to mid-court than the three-point line. He was on the mid-court logo, actually. And so he shot it.

It went in.

It was that kind of night for Villanova, which never trailed in a 92-69 win over the Miami Hurricanes. The Wildcats, the second-seeded team in the South region, advanced to face the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday with a trip to the Final Four on the line.

Earlier this week, I wrote why Villanova’s hot shooting in the first two rounds was a sign the Wildcats could be making a run in the tournament. It happened again last night: Villanova shot 10-of-15 on three-point attempts — their best percentage yet in the tourney — and scored 92 points in the second-slowest game of the tournament to that point. The Wildcats scored 1.57 points per possession — an incredible total. They shot 63 percent from the field in all.

Arcidiaco-YES! #Sweet16 https://t.co/ptivbvEqlF

— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) March 25, 2016

Ryan Arcidiacono and Jenkins each had 21 points for Villanova, who also got 17 from Daniel Ochefu and 14 from Josh Hart — who only played 21 minutes after picking up two early fouls. That wasn’t a bad omen for Hart; Villanova scored the first 5 points of the game, and was up 29-14 just over 11 minutes into the game.

Miami hit four threes in a row at one point to cut the deficit to a point, but Nova was still never really threatened. The Wildcats led 43-37 at halftime and had the game pretty much put away with just 10 minutes remaining. (Ken Pomeroy’s stats gave them a 95 percent chance of winning at that time.)

The Wildcats face Kansas tomorrow at 8:49 p.m.

Follow @dhm on Twitter.