City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Villanova’s had plenty of impressive outside shooting performances in its history, and especially in the last decade-plus under head coach Jay Wright’s perimeter-based attack.

But what the Wildcats accomplished on Saturday night in its annual “Holy War” rivalry with Saint Joseph’s had never been done by any team in the program’s history.

Through Villanova’s first seven games of the season, the No. 4 team in the country was averaging just under 10 made 3-pointers per game. Against St. Joe’s, the Wildcats accomplished the feat in the span of about 10 minutes.

St. Joe’s hung with its nationally-ranked rival for the majority of the first half, but a run of 3-pointers blew the game open as Villanova won its 20th straight Big 5 game in style, setting a program record for triples in a 94-53 win.

Villanova knocked down a whopping 19 3-point shots on 35 attempts (54.3 percent), including a string of 10 straight made between the end of the first half and the beginning of the second. Through the first seven games of the season, Villanova was hitting at a 37 percent clip on triples.

Six different players hit multiple shots from deep: Mikal Bridges (4-7 3PT) led the way with 18 points, Phil Booth (4-9 3PT) had 17, Omari Spellman (4-5 3PT) had 16 and Jalen Brunson (2-4 3PT) had 14 for the Wildcats, who moved to 8-0 on the season and 2-0 in Big 5 play.

The previous ‘Nova record of 17 triples had been set more than a decade ago, against Lehigh on Nov. 27, 2005.

As it was happening, the Villanova players knew they were shooting the ball well, but just not quite how well.

"When we go out there we don’t think like that," Bridges said. "We just go out there and try to play for each other. It just happens from our defense, we just keep getting stops and we kept looking for each other and we were just making shots.”

The Wildcats' offense was coming as easy as ever, with 24 assists on 33 made baskets while shooting just over 50 percent from the floor (33-of-65).

"Rather than just take the first shot, we took, not even the next shot, we took the best shot," Wright said. "I was proud of our guys."

The x-factor for Villanova's shooting the last two games has been the emergence of Spellman, the 6-10 redshirt freshman, as a true perimeter threat. Through his first six games, the Ohio native was 3-for-13 from deep, but has now hit 6-of-8 in his last two games.

"He always could do it, we knew it, we probably weren’t doing a good enough job of putting him in positions to get them," Wright said. "And a couple games ago we said we’ve got to use that, because it’s going to open up the floor for everybody else."

Villanova owned a 49-28 advantage on the glass, and held the Hawks to just 32.8 percent (21-of-64) overall.

Spellman completed a double-double with 11 rebounds; Bridges was one board away. Both Brunson and Booth had six assists; Donte DiVincenzo had one fewer.

"There's nothing that they miss," St. Joe's coach Phil Martelli said. "We're witnessing a blue blood. That's the way blue bloods do things."

James Demery had 14 points and five rebounds to pace St. Joe's (4-4, 0-1 Big 5), which was just 5-of-24 (20.8 percent) from deep.

The Hawks are still without the services of two starters: sophomore wing Charlie Brown, who remains sidelined indefinitely with a fractured left wrist, and Lamarr Kimble, out the rest of the season with a broken bone in his foot.

St. Joe's, looking for its first win over the Villanova since Dec. 2011, kept within arm’s reach over the game’s opening 15 minutes, trailing by just two with 3:41 left until halftime.

"We came ready to play, we really did, but they really out-scrapped us early,” Wright said. “They got loose balls, we got a couple fouls diving for loose balls because they got there first."

That’s when Villanova found its shooting form.

Back-to-back triples by Phil Booth and Mikal Bridges pushed the lead to eight, but the deluge was only beginning. Freshman big man Omari Spellman connected on Villanova’s next two possessions, helping end the first half on a 12-0 run as the Wildcats took a 41-27 lead into the break.

The intermission didn’t slow down ‘Nova in the slightest.

Three more Bridges triples and one more by Booth continued the run to 26-2 surrounding halftime. By the time Villanova finally missed a triple, with under 13 minutes to play, the lead had ballooned to 30.

“I didn’t notice 10 [in a row]," Wright said, "but I knew we were making shots."

It was never in doubt from that point forward.

Villanova gets back in action on Tuesday in the Jimmy V Classic, when they'll take on No. 15 Gonzaga (7-1) at Madison Square Garden. St. Joe's has a week off before another Big 5 matchup, traveling to Temple (4-1) on Dec. 9.