Portsmouth’s Cole Swider’s Villanova Wildcats to face Winthrop in NCAA Tournament

Villanova is the No. 5 seed in the South Region in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, which will be held entirely in the state of Indiana beginning Thursday.

The Wildcats, who earned the BIG EAST regular season championship (16-6 overall, 11-4 BIG EAST), will take on No. 12 seed Winthrop, champions of the Big South who won 23 of 24 games in 2020-21. The game will be played Friday at a site and time to be announced.

The winner of that matchup will advance to a Round of 32 contest on Sunday against the victory of a clash between No. 4 seed Purdue and No. 13 seed North Texas. The Boilermakers eliminated the Wildcats in the Round of 32 in the 2019 South Region in a game played in Hartford, Conn.

This is the first time Villanova has been a No. 5 seed since 2005, when it knocked off New Mexico and No. 4 seed Florida to advance to the NCAA Sweet 16 in Syracuse.

The Wildcats, who were eliminated Thursday by eventual BIG EAST Tournament champion Georgetown, have remained in New York City at the hotel and practiced each of the past three days.