Christina Dalce brings big play inside and is a provider of joy for Villanova

GREENVILLE, S.C. — Ticking off what sophomore forward Christina Dalce brings to Villanova’s basketball program, maybe just start with … joy.

You see it on the court — on Selection Sunday, breaking out front-and-center dance moves after Villanova’s name was revealed, after NCAA Tournament victories, in practice. Dalce’s easy exuberance should not be ignored, now that ‘Nova is into the Sweet 16, facing Miami on Friday.

» READ MORE: Villanova now an even bigger favorite in Sweet 16 matchup vs. Miami

Couple that with Dalce’s crucial X-and-O presence, providing an inside bookend to All-American Maddy Siegrist, offering defensive rim protection, setting a program season record for blocked shots, getting eight offensive rebounds and eight defensive boards in the NCAA first round.

For Villanova’s coaches, maybe this was more of a hope than a promise.

“Oh gosh,” Wildcats coach Denise Dillon said. “I thought maybe her junior year we’d get what we’re getting now, so now we’re excited because we feel like her junior year, things will slow down for her a little. She’ll have a full offseason with us, which she didn’t even have last year.”

Last season, Dalce had mononucleosis and COVID-19 and a knee injury, even tonsil surgery after the season. The first line of her bio: “Played in 13 games and averaged 1.7 points per game and 2.0 rebounds per contest in 5.2 minutes per game.”

Tiara Malcom, Villanova’s first-year assistant coach, related how during her interview process before joining the staff, “They were like, we’re going to give you Chris as a project.”

Made sense, since Malcolm once had been CAA player of the year as a post player at Delaware.

“I went back and watched a couple of her clips from her freshman season — very short in volume,” Malcom said. “Seeing her on the floor, that first time at Davis [Villanova’s practice facility], ‘OK, I see it. She has some tools she can kind of work with.”

» READ MORE: Christina Dalce ‘stepped up to the challenge’ and carved out a starting role

Mary Klinger, in her 39th season coaching Rutgers Prep, knows those tools. Dalce was two-time All-State second team in New Jersey as Rutgers Prep won a lot of games.

“Some kids don’t understand it, if you haven’t been challenged,” Klinger said of going off to college. “They think, ‘I’ve arrived.’ Now the work really begins.”

As Mary Coyle, one of the Coyle twins at Rutgers, pride of Southwest Philly and West Catholic, Klinger scored 30 points for Rutgers when the Scarlet Knights beat Texas in the 1982 AIAW national championship game.

“She was absolutely terrific for us,” Klinger said of Dalce. “She just brought a different element — very athletic; she was a rim protector for us, but could run the floor, get out and guard people. She wasn’t a typical back-to-the-basket player at all. She could get out a bit and shoot. She was more of a scorer for us. That’s going to evolve at Villanova. She scored for us.”

For her own part, Dalce wanted “to be just be open and receptive,” not putting expectations on herself “that end up causing me stress and spiraling down.”

With Siegrist around, all of Villanova’s scoring roles have been given time to evolve.

“What she’s done putting Villanova on the map — no words to describe it,” Dalce said. “Going against her in practice, it can be very annoying, because all she does is score. I can’t stop her. But I note that other teams have to deal with her, not me. I had to do a real self-reflection. She’s an All-American, there’s nothing better than that. Now she’s a first-team All-American, that’s even bigger, best of the best.”

So practice is a laboratory.

“She knows the secrets,” Dalce said of Siegrist.

Watching Dalce’s own learning process is kind of a thrill for a coach, Malcom said.

“I don’t remember the game — we had been working on, like, a post move for the longest time,” Malcom said. “I kept telling her, ‘Chris, if you do this, you’re going to be good, you’re going to be able to score, you’re going to get fouled or get a bucket.’ I want to say it was like three weeks later. We hadn’t worked on it for a while.”

The move was just about slowing down a bit, not finishing in one move. Seeing it in a game, Malcom remembers grabbing the player next to her on the bench.

“You have to put in the work to do it — you just did it,” she told Dalce.

“She thinks I don’t listen, but I do,” Dalce said. “It’s just looking for the right time to apply.”

“One thing I told her when we first met — I don’t want you to change, I want you to be yourself,” Malcom said. “Because what you bring is very unique. She loves to be at the center of things, be involved. The biggest thing is having validation that she’s helping this team. You see it with the hat and the hair and the sunglasses. She just has a different almost infectious energy. It rubs off on her teammates.”

» READ MORE: How God and basketball teamed up to create Maddy Siegrist’s historic career at Villanova

That encouragement from all over the team, Dalce made clear how it was crucial to gaining confidence.

“There were certain times where, I’m just like, I’m really nervous how people are going to react to me dancing or what I wear, or how I do my hair,” Dalce said, sitting at her locker Thursday at the Bon Secours Wellness Arena. “I like to make people laugh and make people smile, so when I’m able to crack a joke and just relax.”

She cracked a joke about herself: “Sometimes they find it funny when I’m being serious.”

Nobody doubts her seriousness on the court. You can see that watching. Of course, when Dalce picked up two fouls on consecutive possessions right away against Florida Gulf Coast — setting a screen, then running into one — she worked to keep those emotions in check as she sat.

“That time, I would definitely say I was in utter shock with how quick I got those back-to-back fouls,” Dalce said. “The fact they weren’t even scoring fouls, they were screening fouls. I saw Coach arguing for me with the refs — that calmed me just a tad bit. People were saying, “It’s OK; it’s OK. I was like, ‘It’s not OK, I’m not going to play for the rest of the half.’ Which I didn’t.”

“Early on in the season, when she would foul, it was almost like you couldn’t approach her in those moments when she came back to the bench,” Malcom said. “Now, it’s sort of like, ‘I’m going to give you a second, and while you’re sitting on the bench, we can talk about it.’ We even have conversations like, ‘Chris, do you feel comfortable going back into this game right now? Can we trust you to not foul?’ That’s been a process. I didn’t have that privilege of approaching that right away.”

Dalce is encouraged to reveal her own thoughts. Go back out there? Not yet is an acceptable answer.

“She’s learning to bring her personality to the floor — not try to be someone different,” Dillon said. “Chris is a dynamic personality, loved by her teammates and I would say campus now.”

Malcom said she has a photograph on her office door now, Dalce on the court in the foreground, the coach kind of looking side-eyed in the background.

“Can you sign it?” the coach asked her player.

“No, there’s NIL for that,” Dalce told her coach.

“Yeah, I’m just like, I’m not making any profit,” Dalce joked, sitting at her locker. “Signatures cost this, cost that. Now I’m giving it away for free?”

The good news for this basketball team currently on the ride of its life — this player’s joy comes along free of charge.

» READ MORE: NIL adds another layer of intrigue to the Villanova-Miami Sweet 16 showdown