University of North Carolina Ashville Athletics
Bulldogs Practice at Barclays Center
03.17.2016 | Men's Basketball
BROOKLYN, N.Y. – The UNC Asheville men's basketball team made its first visit to Barclays Center for an open practice this afternoon as the Bulldogs met with the media in preparation for their first-round NCAA Tournament contest on Friday vs. Villanova starting at 12:40 p.m.
Friday's game will be televised by TruTV with veteran broadcasters Verne Lunquist and Jim Spanarkel providing coverage. The game can be heard locally on WWNC Radio (570-AM) with the pre-game show starting at Noon.
The 15th-seeded Bulldogs (22-11) enter the NCAA Tournament with the best three-point defense in the country, holding opponents to 28.4 percent shooting from long range. The Bulldogs enter the Dance with the fourth-most total steals (304) and the sixth-best steals per game average (9.3 per) in the country. The Bulldogs' top-15 statistical leaderboard finishes No. 14 nationally in turnovers forced per game (15.73), while Asheville led the Big South in all four of the categories.
Individually, sophomore Ahmad Thomas sits 15th nationally in total steals with 69, while the forward is ranked 21st in the country with his 2.09 steals per game average.
Something will have to give on Friday, as No. 2-seed Villanova is ranked 16th in the country in three-point attempts, hoisting up 847 total long distance shots this season, and is 27th nationally in total three-point field goals made with 291 makes. The Wildcats hit an average of 8.6 three-pointers a game, a mark that sits at No. 51 in the country.
Asheville enters the NCAA Tournament with all five starters averaging double figures in points, one of two Big South schools to do so, along with Longwood (whose season is complete). The Bulldogs and Lancers are the first league members to have five players average at least 10.0 points since Charleston Southern in 2013-14.
Bulldog coach Nick McDevitt looks forward to tomorrow's match-up with Villanova. The Wildcats were ranked #1 in the country for much of the season.
“First of all, we're certainly excited to be here in New York City, participating in the NCAA Tournament against a terrific program in Villanova. It's a tall order, a tall task. Certainly going to be challenging tomorrow afternoon, but our young men are looking forward to that. So we're looking forward to tomorrow,” commented McDevitt.
“We want to compete tomorrow. We also want to advance. That's going to be very, very difficult,” added McDevitt.
The Bulldogs have played a lot of close games this year and Coach McDevitt hopes that will be to Asheville's benefit.
“We've actually talked about that at length as a team, as a staff, that tournament games going into our conference tournament anyway, we were talking about the fact that we had played in so many close games, not always coming out on the right side, but played in a lot of close games nonetheless. And how we felt like we would be more comfortable than our opponent just because of how many of those games were so close for us,” McDevitt also said
“So hopefully tomorrow, it's still close at that last media timeout and see what happens over the last three, four minutes. Hopefully, our young men, because of the games that we've played in the past -- some of our upperclassmen have played against Duke and Kentucky, and this year playing Georgetown and Texas A&M, having the opportunity to play in arenas that are 20,000 seats in front of a lot of folks on national television, hopefully, those kinds of things as well cause us to have a little bit more of a level of comfort tomorrow afternoon.”
Villanova coach Jay Wright is very impressed with the Big South Conference champions.
“We've got a great opponent, a very good offensive team in Asheville,” commented Wright. “Nick McDevitt has done a fantastic job. They are a very good team,” declared Wright. “It's the classic mid-major nightmare in the first round. That's what you get in the NCAA first round. I think we have great respect for them, and we're psyched to play them.”
