Little of that came into the equation when 6-foot-11 Omar Samhan took the floor for the Gaels, and the Villanova frontcourt defenders, either undersize or underexperienced, couldn't do much with him. The result was a 75-68 loss and, from the outside, a quicker than expected exit from the NCAA tournament.
Really, though, there was nothing unexpected. When a team - even a team that reached the Final Four - loses its three frontcourt starters and attempts a transitional triage with either smaller players or with freshmen, the physics of basketball will exert its force eventually. As long as the goal is 10 feet from the ground, tall is a good thing to be.
Samhan is better than most, and St. Mary's is smart enough to feed the big dog, but nevertheless this game was coming. If Villanova had been luckier yesterday, it might not have arrived until the regional round or beyond, but it still was coming.
That isn't how Jay Wright looks at it, although he recognized his team's shortcomings as well as anyone. If it had just been able to slip past St. Mary's (after slipping past 15th-seeded Robert Morris), then maybe another week of practice could have hardened the youngsters enough to make a serious run something more than a fond hope.
"We almost got there. We just didn't get good enough. We just ran out of time," Wright said. "We were finally at this point where I thought we had great concentration, great preparation, great commitment. I thought we competed hard and this might have been the first time this year that everybody got it. It was a successful season because we got there and the young guys learned what it's all about."
That's a tough sell to at least a large segment of 'Nova Nation, which has become used to better at this time of year and figured that the presence of Scottie Reynolds could paper over a few deficiencies.
