Phil Booth cemented himself in Villanova basketball lure by scoring 20 points in the 2016 NCAA Championship Game, but he really has never stopped impressing, especially during March. Consider these numbers, many of which were honed from the sports-reference.com/cbb website :
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>>> It is a long shot, but if lightening strikes a third time for Phil Booth, he could become:
> The 26th player to appear in three NCAA Championship Games;
> The 10th player to appear in three NCAA Championship Wins;
> And the first player to appear in three NCAA Championship Wins without the letters “UCLA” on the front of his jersey.
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>>> Thursday (against Saint Mary’s) will mark the 70th game in Booth’s career against non-Big East competition . . . Villanova is 62-7 (.899) in those games, the losses coming to: North Carolina St., Oklahoma, Virginia, Michigan, Furman, Penn and Kansas.
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>>> Booth has made 16 consecutive free throws in NCAA Tournament competition, last missing in his only FT attempt in the 2016 Round-of-64 Game against UNC Asheville.
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>>> Booth has 13 turnovers in 14 career NCAA Tournament games covering 319 minutes . . . That’s about one turnover every 24.5 minutes of playing time.
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>>> Booth is 5-for-6 (83.3%) from the three-point line in three NCAA Tournament Round-of-64 Games.
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>>> How about some Phil Booth NCAA Tournament Balanced Scoring (14 Games)?:
> 17 . . . Two-point Field Goals (34 attempts - 50.0%)
> 17 . . . Three-point Field Goals (36 attempts - 47.2%)
> 17 . . . Free Throws (19 attempts - 89.5%)
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>>> Here is Villanova’s tournament record when Phil Booth plays:
2015 . . . 3-0 Big East . . . 1-1 NCAA
2016 . . . 2-1 Big East . . . 6-0 NCAA
2017 . . . 0-0 Big East . . . 0-0 NCAA
2018 . . . 3-0 Big East . . . 6-0 NCAA
2019 . . . 3-0 Big East . . .
> We don’t want anyone to hurt themselves, so we will do the math here . . . That is a combined 24-2 (11-1 Big East, 13-1 NCAA).
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>>> As you can see from above, Booth has played in 12 consecutive NCAA Tournament victories, just one behind four Duke players for the longest individual player winning streak in tourney history: