City of Basketball Love

Ari Rosenfeld (@realA_rosenfeld)
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Second-ranked Villanova faced one of the toughest road tests the Big East has to offer today, taking on No. 24 Xavier at the Cintas Center, and the Wildcats passed with flying colors.

Relying on just six players in the absence of senior big man Darryl Reynolds, the defending national champions got timely contributions throughout the lineup and cruised to a 73-57 victory.

At first…
Villanova got off to a slow start, scoring just three points in the game’s first five-plus minutes and trailing through the under-12 media timeout. With redshirt-sophomore Eric Paschall replacing an injured Reynolds in the starting lineup, the Wildcats got off to just a 1-of-5 start to the field.

Turning point…
Just before that under-12 timeout, head coach Jay Wright turned to the lone rotation player available to him off the bench, and as has been the case increasingly often in recent games, redshirt-freshman guard Donte DiVincenzo answered Wright’s call. The Wilmington native entered the game with ‘Nova trailing 12-11 and made an immediate impact, hitting a three-ball to give the Wildcats the lead and ignite a 9-0 run. Another triple later in the half, preceded by a backdoor slam, pushed the lead to double digits and gave DiVincenzo 10 points at the half. Villanova would lead by no fewer than seven points for the remainder of the game.

Shining stars…
DiVincenzo finished with 17 points on 5-for-7 shooting (3-4 3PT) and earned the starting nod in favor of Paschall in the second half. Today’s performance continues a recent stretch of strong play, with the “Michael Jordan of Delaware” having scored 15 and 20 points, respectively, in the Wildcats previous two games.

The more established member of the Wildcats’ backcourt, sophomore Jalen Brunson broke down the Xavier defense from start to finish, getting into the lane seemingly at will to the tune of 17 points and seven assists, compared to just two turnovers.

Senior big man RaShid Gaston was able to take advantage of Reynolds’ absence for Xavier, leading the way for the Musketeers with 23 points and 10 rebounds.

Noteworthy numbers…
500: The win marked the 500th of Jay Wright’s career, with 378 of them having come at Villanova. Wright has amassed a .700 winning percentage in his 16 seasons since arriving at Villanova from Hofstra.

11: It was the 11th time this season that DiVincenzo reached double figures, and the Wildcats are 11-0 in those games, winning all 11 games by a double-digit margin.

22: Xavier kept itself in the game by dominating the offensive glass, corralling 22 of its own misses compared to just six for Villanova. With the exception of a brief run from freshman center Dylan Painter, all of the Wildcats’ minutes went to players 6-foot-7 or shorter in Reynolds’ absence.

Up next…
Villanova (24-2, 11-2 Big East) @ DePaul, Mon., Feb. 13, 9:00 p.m.
Xavier (18-7, 8-4 Big East) @ Providence, Wed., Feb. 15, 6:30 p.m.