Josh Hart Is Not Your Ordinary Superstar
By Richard Finn
Special to BIG EAST.com
NEW YORK – Josh Hart is not your usual superstar.
“I am like a Swiss army knife, “ said Hart. “I take pride in doing all of the little things. Winning is not just who scores the most points, who has most rebounds, It is about everything. I try to defend, I try to rebound, dive on every loose ball. That is what I take pride in.”
For doing all of those little things so well, the Villanova senior guard was honored with the BIG EAST Player of the Year award as voted on by the conference coaches.
Hart was introduced along with Creighton center Justin Patton as BIG EAST Freshman of the Year and Butler head coach Chris Holtmann as BIG EAST Coach of the Year, at a news conference at Madison Square Garden just hours before the tipoff of the BIG EAST Men’s basketball tournament presented by Jeep on Wednesday.
“I never have been one who really cares about numbers. The only numbers that I really care about at the end of the day are the ones in the win column,” said Hart, the cornerstone of a Villanova Wildcats team that went 28-3 (15-3); won the BIG EAST regular season title for the fourth consecutive season and spent several weeks atop the national rankings.
Villanova is top-seeded in the tournament and will meet Wednesday night’s winner between No. 8 St. John’s and Georgetown in the Thursday matinee opener.
Villanova coach Jay Wright was pleased that Hart was acknowledged for his blue-collar style of play by the other coaches.
“I am impressed by the BIG EAST coaches that the way he plays is being honored because so many times it just has to be gaudy. He is a complete player and he does anything that the team asks of him “ said Wright.
Hart’s play has also been noticed and impressed a national audience. The Silver Spring Md. student-athlete is 1 of 10 semifinalists for the James A. Naismith Trophy for most outstanding college basketball player. The four finalists will be announced on March 19 with the winner announced on April 2.
When the team needed Hart him to score the 6-5 guard scored. He averaged 18.6 points, tops in the conference going into Villanova’s first tournament game. And he was not afraid to have the ball in his hands at crunch time.
“I always want the ball at the end, “ said Hart. “As a competitor, that is the best thing that you can have. “
Hart has also averaged 6.5 rebounds a game, fourth best in the league. He is sixth in steals at 1. 5 and is ninth in assist/turnover ratio at 1/7.
As much as his all-around play, the aspects of Hart’s game that has impressed Wright even more through his entire four-year stay on the Main Line have not been found in the box score.
“The two characteristics are humble and intelligent,” said Wright. “The way he has handled everything through his career, growth, failure, success, I am really impressed how he has handle everything.”
Hart is not content with what he has accomplished so far, both individually and as a team that won the National Championship title last year.
“Regardless of the the awards I have won and championships my team has won I want to keep getting better. That will never change. I am not where I want to be at yet as a player and until I am there I am going to keep working,” said Hart, who won the Dave Gavitt Trophy as the Most Outstanding Player as a sophomore in the 2015 BIG EAST tournament.
“ I want to be the best player I can be and I am not sure what that is going to be so I am going to find out,” said Hart, who this season joined Kerry Kittles as one of only two Villanova players to amass at least 1,800 points, 700 rebounds, 250 assist and 150 steals in a career.
While the Wildcats are secure in knowing that they will be playing in the NCAA Tournament and most likely with either a No. 1 or 2 seed, don’t expect Hart or his teammates to ease back and simply cruise through this week.
“Everything with the regular season doesn’t matter. We are zero-zero and nothing that we have done in the regular season means anything, and nobody is going to back down from us because we are the regular season champions,” said Hart. “We know that, we know that we have to focus on every play. We don’t come to the BIG EAST tournament or the NCAA Tournament just to play ball and have fun. We want to win.”
And when this season does end, hopefully late into March or even early April, it won’t be the end of Josh Hart’s career but more than likely the beginning of another phase according to Wright.
“He is a complete player, a lot of NBA teams will want that on their teams,” he said.