Villanova’s Mikal Bridges puts on a show at Madison Square Garden

Villanova’s Mikal Bridges puts on a show at Madison Square Garden.
NEW YORK — Mikal Bridges was not even a top 80 recruit coming out of his suburban Philadelphia high school in 2014. In the one-and-done era of college basketball, he was the opposite when he arrived at Villanova that summer and was forced to redshirt his freshman season because he simply wasn’t ready. When he was finally prepared to play as a relatively unknown reserve on the Wildcats’ national championship team the following season, his older teammates chided him for his finesse tendencies in the lane. He preferred layups over powerful dunks.

So it was remarkable to see Bridges’s transformation Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden against Gonzaga in the Jimmy V Classic, when midway through the second half, the redshirt junior took two dribbles into the lane and dunked over two of the Bulldogs’ big men. Countless people stood and gasped in the lower bowl, including some fans wearing orange of Syracuse, which played Connecticut in the nightcap. Then the 6-foot-7 Bridges did something that could’ve easily made the scores of NBA executives stand themselves: About seven seconds later, after he ran back on defense and lurked in the lane, he came up with the most emphatic block of the night in his team’s 88-72 win.

“Just being aggressive … I just saw a lane and tried to go up and be strong,” Bridges said. “And defense, that’s the main thing out there.”

[December Madness: Ball State stuns No. 9 Notre Dame with late three-pointer]