VILLANOVA, Pa. — As he sat at the podium following No. 3 Villanova’s 83-62 win over DePaul on Tuesday night (see Instant Replay), Kris Jenkins looked like a mischievous kid caught stealing a cookie.
His head coach, Jay Wright, had just been asked how Jenkins has been on such a hot streak of late, capped by a career-high 31-point outing Tuesday — the highest single-game total of any Villanova player this season.
And the coach’s response drew a wide, playful smile from his junior forward.
“You don’t pass,” Wright said.
Busted.
Of course, that’s exactly how Wright likes it. As opposing defenses key on the dynamic trio of point guard Ryan Arcidiacono, swingman Josh Hart and center Daniel Ochefu, Jenkins is often left open on the perimeter. And when he is, the Villanova coach wants him to shoot.
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And not hesitate when he does.
“When Daniel Ochefu gets it going inside and people really try to take Arch away from us, Kris always winds up being that guy that the ball comes back to,” Wright said. “We really don’t run a lot of stuff for him. It’s not his job to pass. We run something for Arch, he hits it to Josh, Josh reverses it to Kris and he’s open. It’s his job to make shots. He’s just great at it, he really is.”
He certainly showed that against DePaul, hitting a career-high eight three-pointers on 14 attempts. He was especially proficient in the first half when he made four straight for ’Nova (26-4 overall, 15-2 Big East) on his way to his own personal 14-0 run that gave the Wildcats a commanding 25-10 lead midway through the first half. And he stayed hot in the second half, hitting three trifectas in the first seven minutes as Villanova extended its lead to 61-39 en route to an easy victory that clinched the program’s third straight outright Big East title.
“My teammates do an unbelievable job of making the right play,” Jenkins said. “Recently, the right play [for me] has just been to catch and shoot. They do a great job finding me. Guys like Josh, they attack the basket and teams collapse on them and I'm always there for them.”
Hart, another junior, is certainly a big reason for the recent strong play of Jenkins, who’s averaging 21.4 points over Villanova’s last five contests. After mostly being a glue guy in his first two seasons, Hart has emerged as one of the premier players in the Big East this year, showing that again Tuesday by scoring 18 points, including the first six of the game.
But while he knows other teams' game plan for him, he’s confused why they don’t do it as much for his classmate.
“I’m not sure how they can forget about him,” Hart said of Jenkins. “Kris is a great shooter. He’s able to knock down shots at a high level.”
It’s important to note that Jenkins is more than just a shooter, though. Against DePaul, he finished some pretty drives and made some nice plays in the lane. He also had two steals and, despite the claim that he never passes, set up Phil Booth for a pair of late three-pointers, getting especially excited after one of them.
“He’s a complete player,” Wright said. “A lot of young guys, they like shooting threes. And we want them to, we want them to be aggressive. He started out aggressive and we’re just trying to work on his decision-making and becoming a complete player. I think he’s doing a great job at it.”
The strong combo play of Hart and Jenkins is one of the biggest reasons why Villanova has won the Big East every season in which those two have been on campus. That’s quite the achievement — but one they’re trying not to think about yet.
“It hasn’t hit me yet,” Hart said. “Hopefully, it doesn’t hit me until the end of the year when our season is over. I’m not trying to think about that. That’s one of our goals that we set out at the beginning of the year and we achieved that goal. But we have more games left to play.”
No one has to tell Wright that his team’s staggering string of championships in the new Big East could turn into a footnote if they have another disappointing March. But he made sure to acknowledge the accomplishment, along with the team’s third straight perfect season at the Pavilion, which he called “really cool.”
“It’s something at the end of the year, we will take great pride in,” the Villanova coach said. “We really do take great pride in the regular season. We evaluate our program by what we do in the regular season. That’s how we make all our decisions. But we know that we get judged publicly by how you do in the [NCAA] Tournament.
“Every game is important. They only get to play so many games. We want to enjoy getting better for that Georgetown game [Saturday]. We don’t want to throw any games away. These guys only get to play so many. I get to coach a lot. These games are really valuable to these guys.”
Really valuable and, on nights like this, also a lot of fun for guys like Jenkins.