‘Nova Wins 1st Big East Title Since 81-82

Report From Villanova.edu

CINCINNATI, Ohio – The Villanova Wildcats claimed their first outright regular season BIG EAST title since 1981-82 on Thursday night with a 77-70 victory over the Xavier Musketeers at the Cintas Center. VU is now 27-3 overall, 15-2 in the BIG EAST while Xavier falls to 20-11 overall, 10-8 in the BIG EAST.

“I’m proud of these guys,” stated Villanova head coach Jay Wright. “We have so much respect for this league and the teams and players in it, that this means a lot.”

Junior Darrun Hilliard led the Wildcats with 19 points while junior JayVaughn Pinkstonadded 15 points. Senior James Bell finished with 12 points, including an alley-oop slam off a feed from Ryan Arcidiacono that was Bell’s 1,000th career point. He is the 58th Villanova player to score 1,000 or more points in his stint at Villanova.

“It’s not about the points,” stated Bell. “It’s about us playing together as a team.”

Justin Martin led all scorers with 20 points for the Musketeers.

The Wildcats expanded a 41-36 halftime advantage to 46-36 with a 5-0 outburst to open the second half. However, Xavier remained within striking distance through most of the final 17:54 thanks to the work of Martin and Semaj Christon, who ended the evening with 18 points.

In fact, two Dee Davis 3-pointers shaved a 71-59 Villanova lead with 1:25 to play in the contest to 71-65 with 1:01 on the clock. Xavier eventually narrowed the gap to 73-70 with 21 seconds remaining on a Christon jumper before freshman Josh Hart dropped in a pair of huge free throws to push the lead back to 75-70 with 19.3 seconds left.

Xavier would not score again as the Wildcats closed out the 77-70 triumph. It completed an 8-1 regular season for Villanova in conference action, with the only loss coming at second place Creighton on Feb. 16.

The 15 BIG EAST victories are the most a Wildcat team has posted in conference regular season play.

“This is a credit to our leaders, James Bell and Tony Chennault,” stated Wright of the two seniors who accompanied the head coach to the post-game press conference.

Xavier jumped out to a 7-0 lead in the first 2:30 and the Wildcats saw James Bell head to the bench after being whistled for a flagrant one foul, giving him two in the early going. VU misfired on its first four attempts from the field before sophomore Ryan Arcidiacono dropped in a 3-pointer that was followed by a pair of baskets by Hilliard to pull VU even just before the first official timeout was signaled.

“(Bell) does everything for us so we just needed to get organized when we knew he wasn’t going to be in there as much as he usually is,” stated Wright of an early time out.

Villanova heated up the offense and much of it was sparked by a productive ¾ court trap that helped VU enjoy a 10-4 advantage in fast break points over the first 20 minutes. That and some nifty work from beyond the arc by Hilliard, Arcidiacono and freshman Kris Jenkins helped the Wildcats claim a 41-36 lead after 20 minutes.

Hilliard set the scoring pace for Villanova in the first half with 15 points while Justin Martin’s dozen led the Musketeers, who were 11-of-24 from the floor in the half (.458). Villanova finished 14-of-25 over the first 20 minutes (.560) and were 6-of-12 (.500) from outside the 3-point arc.

“At halftime, we talked about being better defensively,” Wright noted. “We executed pretty well offensively in the first half but I didn’t think we did a good job on Christon. We talked about doing a better job on defense and I thought we did that.”

Indeed, the Musketeers connected on just 12-of-36 field goal attempts after intermission, ending the evening 23-of-60 from the floor (.389). Xavier was 6-of-24 (.250) from outside the 3-point arc.

The Wildcats return to South Philadelphia and the Wells Fargo Center Saturday to wrap up the regular season against Georgetown (2:00 p.m./Fox Sports 1). Gus Johnson and Bob Wenzel will have the call on the national telecast.