2015 has been more experienced teams do better in the NCAA Tournament.
Depth
This season’s Kentucky team is known for its depth, and they famously have nine former McDonald’s All-Americans on the team, but Villanova gives Kentucky a run for its money in terms of depth in terms of playing time and Offensive Rating.
| Player | %Min | ORtg |
|---|---|---|
| Aaron Harrison | 64 | 111.4 |
| Andrew Harrison | 62 | 109.6 |
| Devin Booker | 51.6 | 124.9 |
| Karl-Anthony Towns | 50 | 121.2 |
| Trey Lyles | 48.3 | 115.4 |
| Dakari Johnson | 43.4 | 110.6 |
| Willie Cauley-Stein | 62.8 | 115.6 |
| Tyler Ulis | 51.4 | 121.9 |
| Player | %Min | ORtg |
|---|---|---|
| Darrun Hilliard | 69.8 | 117.4 |
| Dylan Ennis | 69 | 108.3 |
| JayVaughn Pinkston | 66.2 | 106.2 |
| Daniel Ochefu | 58.8 | 114.9 |
| Ryan Arcidiacono | 75.6 | 114.6 |
| Josh Hart | 62.3 | 121.2 |
| Phil Booth | 34.4 | 125.8 |
| Kris Jenkins | 47.7 | 124.7 |
Looking at these tables, the eight-player-deep Villanova squad can match up with Kentucky, as no player on either team plays more than 80% of the team’s minutes or has an Offensive Rating under 100.0.
What Villanova has over Kentucky is that, outside of freshman Phil Booth, this team has been playing together for two years straight and has double the reps, in both practice and game situations, than Kentucky has.
The large amount of interchangeable players separate Kentucky and Villanova from teams such as Virginia or Wisconsin that rely on a smaller group of core players.
Strength of Schedule
When KenPom, and it is easy to see why -- our Bracketology project that there will be six Big East teams that make the NCAA tournament.
With only 10 teams in the conference, Villanova has been playing tournament-quality teams in more than half of their conference games. The Cats are 14-2 in conference this year.
Their overall strength of schedule rates as 33rd in the country, per KenPom, showing that they have played and beaten many quality opponents this season, even outside their conference.
Conclusion
On the Villanova team page, the five most similar historical teams according to our algorithms are all former Final Four teams, one of which is an NCAA Champion (the 2012 Kentucky squad). Villanova ranks fifth in our nERD metric, which indicates by how many points they would be expected to defeat an average opponent on a neutral court. Their nERD of 18.62 isn't even a full point behind Arizona (19.45), who ranks second in the metric.
As our own Bryan Mears profiled, this year only Kentucky has an offense and defense that are both in the top 10 in efficiency. However, Villanova is knocking on the door to reaching this elite status, and with a strong Big East tournament against three possible tournament teams, Villanova could find itself as the second team with a top-10 offense and defense.
Even though Kentucky is the clear-cut favorite to win it all this year, Villanova very well may be a team capable of taking down Kentucky and winning the NCAA tournament.