2024 WNBA Draft Scouting Report: Matilde Villa
Providing a summary of the Italian prospect's game
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Talented players from all across the world have been part of the WNBA since its inception. However, these players often seem undervalued on draft night for a variety of reasons, from legitimate concerns about unavailability, to the difficulties in projecting players drafted two or more years younger than their NCAA peers, to lack of familiarity with overseas leagues. However, quality players have been found from international leagues at every stage of the WNBA Draft, and there are even undrafted players who become quality WNBA players like Marine Johannès. As such, it remains important for teams and media members to scout them, and it can be fun even for more casual fans. We have previously covered Australian wing Isobel Borlase, Australian forward Nyadiew Puoch, and French guards Leïla Lacan and Carla Leite and are back to discuss another exciting young player eligible for the 2024 WNBA Draft, Matilde Villa from Italy.
Matilde Villa is a 5-foot-8 playmaking guard who plays for Umana Reyer Venezia in EuroCup Women and the Italian league. Umana Reyer Venezia is an extremely competitive club that has qualified for five of the last six EuroCup Women semifinals, including this season, but has never won the competition. The team also appears to be taking an aggressive approach to returning to the EuroLeague Women after a two-year absence; the team’s two active WNBA players, Jessica Shepard and Awak Kuier, both opted not to compete in the WNBA this season in order to be available throughout the Italian league playoffs. The team features several other players familiar to a North American audience, including former Georgia Tech and WNBA post player Lorela Cubaj, former UConn wing Anna Makurat, and former Georgia Tech wing Francesca Pan. Lisa Berkani, who shares point guard responsibilities with Villa, is also a former WNBA draft pick, and the Minnesota Lynx retain her draft rights. Villa has also established herself as a consistent presence on Italian national team rosters in recent months.
Villa’s best skill is her ability to attack defenses off the dribble and finish near the basket. She can make highlight-reel plays, such as finishing floaters over even exceptionally long players like 6-foot-7 Kamila Borkowska.
She also excels at making space for short jumpers in the short mid-range which she converts frequently and efficiently.
One of Villa’s go-to moves consists of turning her back toward - but not necessarily bodying - her defender for a dribble or two before spinning and getting into the lane. In the following play, she attacks 5-foot-10 point guard Barbora Wrzesinski and showcases her ability to extend and finish and-1 opportunities.
On this play, she turns and attacks about 30 feet from the hoop yet still manages to beat the help for an open layup (with some help from Martina Fassina, an effective outside shooter, pulling that help that much further from the paint).
Villa’s consistent ability to puncture defenses has helped her convert 56.2% of her 2-point field-goal attempts in the Italian league and EuroCup Women through April 6. This would be a remarkable figure for any guard but especially for one who takes the lion’s share of her shots from inside the arc as Villa does.
Villa’s ability to get into the paint not only creates scoring opportunities for herself but also passing lanes for teammates. This is especially valuable when she can find open kickouts for such knockdown 3-point shooters as Venezia’s two primary wings, Francesca Pan (43.0% across EuroCup Women and the Italian league) and Martina Fassina (46.0% in the same competitions). This time, Lisa Berkani is the beneficiary from the wing as Villa takes the high ball screen directly after bringing the ball into the halfcourt, getting all the way to the baseline before hitting her backcourt partner with the pass.
Villa can be dangerous in pick-and-roll with a variety of screening partners. While Jessica Shepard and Awak Kuier are notable scoring weapons, Lorela Cubaj’s stand-out offensive skill has always been her passing. The timing on this pair of pick-and-rolls with Cubaj may not be perfect - Cubaj neither truly connects with Villa’s defender on the first screen and Villa attacks early on the second - but Villa still creates great lanes for both herself and Cubaj, slotting in a nice layup assist.
Kuier also serves as a quality pick-and-pop partner for Villa.
However, Villa’s passing timing remains far from perfect. On this wing pick-and-roll with Shepard, Villa misses the window to hit the roller, allowing herself to get stuck. She then loses her balance and tries to throw the pass into Shepard anyway, only for the pass to be well off target, becoming essentially a loose ball to be picked off by Karlie Samuelson.
This next turnover is a better read and is ultimately a positive sign. Villa tries to throw an aggressive pass to Berkani cutting from the right wing toward the basket, but she cannot locate the pass accurately enough, and it is intercepted.
An interesting wrinkle is that Villa has experience setting ball screens in inverted pick-and-rolls with Jessica Shepard. Consider this example where Shepard takes the ball all the way from beyond the 3-point arc for a layup.
That play is especially notable because it comes on the first possession of the second half of this game, suggesting an elevated level of intent in its deployment. This may not be the most unique or hardest-to-teach skill in the world, and it does not always yield such marvelous results for Venezia, but it does speak to Villa being receptive to coaches employing creative offensive sets and unconventional actions.
Given her speed and ball-handling ability, one might expect Villa to shoot a considerable number of free throws. However, through April 6, she was only averaging 2.7 free throw attempts per 40 minutes in the Italian league and EuroCup Women combined. This should not be confused with an overall contact aversion, as seen here when she once again snakes a PnR and absorbs a lot of contact from Kamila Borkowska on the ensuing layup attempt, drawing a pair of free throws.
Instead, it appears that her excellent touch allows her to remain efficient without taking a significant toll on her relatively small frame.
Shorter-range baskets are Villa’s bread and butter, but she also has some budding skill taking jumpers from farther out, as she manages on this pick-and-roll (PnR) from the left wing.
Villa’s low volume as a 3-point shooter could cause her problems moving forward. Through April 6, she has only attempted 2.6 3-point attempts per 40 minutes in the Italian league and EuroCup Women despite making 35.7% of these shots. This selectivity may not always help her team and may affect its offensive spacing. For example, the open 3-pointer she gets off of this give-and-go may not be the easiest attempt in the world. However, not shooting this shot (and also not immediately attacking) meant that Villa was not taking advantage of the space created by the initial action and the ensuing defensive confusion.
Some good news is that Villa is shooting 81.0% from the free throw line this season through April 6. A strong free throw percentage is often a positive indicator for future shooting development.
As she continues to extend her shooting range off the dribble, opposing defenses will likely employ drop defense or other below-the-level coverages when Villa runs the PnR. Fortunately, Villa has a strong counter for this defense as she is extremely comfortable snaking PnRs, changing directions and finishing over, past, or even through the screen defender. In this instance, she finishes through former Kansas State post player Peyton Williams, setting up the PnR effectively and patiently even with the shot clock already into single digits when she receives the pass.
Many of the various highs and lows of Villa’s scoring package come together on this play. There appears to be some miscommunication between fellow ballhandler Berkani and Villa about where she should be on this pass, as Villa stunts one way before lifting to the wing. However, once Villa recovers, she attacks the closeout from Holly Winterburn, getting into the paint where the London Lions have a taut defensive structure. Villa then stops, gets closer to the basket with a nice step-through, and releases a short jumper over the 5-foot-11 Winterburn that rolls in for a beautiful finish.
Villa has room for improvement at the defensive end. She has had solid moments defending on the ball, but most of these come either against players whose best strengths do not come from scoring inside the arc and/or when given the opportunity to go under ball screens. In the games watched for this scouting report, this play against former Georgia Tech guard Sydney Wallace stands out as a positive moment against a relatively versatile scorer. Wallace is setting up a side PnR while Venezia will try to force Wallace toward the sideline in an ICE coverage. When Wallace refuses the screen and attacks the open side, Villa bodies Wallace and then stays with her when she retreats, forcing the play to reset.
Another high-water mark would be this play against high-level driver Kyra Lambert where Lambert takes a ball screen after taking the ball up the floor and Villa stays right with her.
However, in some more straight-up situations, Villa’s ball screen defense can leave a fair amount to be desired. For example, Villa falls well behind Shey Peddy on this PnR, allowing her to get deep in the paint before being corralled by screen defender Kuier. Despite having ample time to recover, Villa continues to trail the play. Kuier’s movement in response to Villa’s trailing leaves roller Megan Gustafson wide open, with a well-positioned deflecting leg from Kuier needed to prevent an easy layup.
It is not just WNBA-level guards who can leave Villa far behind the play. Getting a step behind on the misdirection dribble and then running into the ball screen here gives Matea Tadic the room she needs to turn the corner and make a quality kickout pass even if Sydney Wallace ultimately misses the shot.
In this sequence guarding Tadic, Villa does not fall too far behind the initial ball screen but slips and falls as she recovers. She eventually rotates to the wing to guard Virag Weninger, and while she gets her feet set before Weninger drives, she concedes an easy paint touch before fouling on the spin move, allowing an and-1.
Weninger is not a point guard, and this play speaks to Villa having room to improve in one-on-one defense. It is worth noting that Villa tends to be assigned the easier defensive backcourt match-up when playing in two-point guard lineups with Berkani. As quality as the competition in EuroCup Women can be, very few teams sport multiple WNBA-caliber players in their backcourt, so this tendency does serve as an additional negative indicator for Villa’s overall chops at that end of the court.
One notable strength for Villa is her consistency in getting back in defensive transition. Her combination of speed and effort can shut off opponents’ runout opportunities and allow her to contest shots that others cannot. On this play, while Villa is above the break on offense before the turnover, making it less work for her to change ends, she still gets back in plenty of time. She then plays the 2-on-1 well defensively, playing Barbora Wrzesinski so that the pass-first point guard is better positioned to square rather than pass and then squaring up and forcing her to miss the layup.
As with any international prospect, availability is a major question for Villa. Italy has had two clear WNBA-level talents in recent years – playmaking forward Cecilia Zandalasini, who has not played in the WNBA since 2018, and Villa’s teammate Lorela Cubaj. There have been indications that Zandalasini has wanted to play, but that did not come to fruition whether because of her suffering injuries or the Minnesota Lynx, who hold her WNBA rights, or not having the roster room. Cubaj has received contracts in each of the last three WNBA seasons and made the opening day roster in each of the past two seasons. Furthermore, despite sporting several WNBA players even before Zandalasini, Italy has not qualified for a global competition since the WNBA’s first season, with its last appearance being in the 1996 Olympics. If this trend continues, Villa should have every other summer completely free of national team obligations. This may not leave her as available as the typical Australian prospect, but Villa does not have these concerns to nearly the same extent as the French prospects previously covered.
Overall, Matilde Villa’s promise as a scoring guard should allow her to carve out a role as a WNBA guard in time, especially if her confidence in her 3-point shot improves. In particular, her exceptional touch at the basket makes her a potent scorer even when she does not quite get all the way to the rim. It also serves as a positive indicator for her shooting potential. What could prove the difference between her merely making the league and making an impact is continuing to develop as a passer. While her effective pairing with Berkani demonstrates that she can play next to other guards, her lack of size means that she will likely play most of her minutes as a point guard, so being a complete primary ballhandler would unlock different lineup combinations. It makes sense to draft Villa in the middle or end of the second round - or even earlier if a team is especially skeptical of any of the remaining NCAA prospects making a roster spot.
Thanks for reading the Her Hoop Stats Newsletter. If you like our work, be sure to check out our stats site, our podcast, and our social media accounts on Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram.