City of Basketball Love

Joseph Santoliquito (@JSantoliquito)
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VILLANOVA — It was a fashionably late arriving crowd to Villanova’s Finneran Pavilion Tuesday night. They did not need to be reminded of the perils that haunted the program last year. Though, just two weeks into this season, they were there.

The Wildcats suffered a five-game, and one three-game losing streak in 2023-24, which got them a signed and sealed invitation to the NIT.

On Tuesday, Villanova was staring at the possibility of its first three-game losing skid this season. The Wildcats had lost this year’s version of the Holy War to St. Joe’s, followed by a double-figure setback to Virginia on Friday.

So, the ’Cats’ 93-49 thrashing over visiting Penn Tuesday night provided some semblance of calm thanks to a 17-0 outburst the last 8:55 of the first half.

The victory, paced by Eric Dixon’s game-high 23 points and Jhamir Brickus’ 16, helped Villanova improve to 3-3 overall with Maryland up next in the Empire Classic from the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J.

Wildcats’ coach Kyle Neptune is hoping the Penn victory steers this team into the one he envisioned.

The Wildcats had 19 team assists Tuesday night, two more than what they produced combined (17) in the consecutive losses to St. Joe’s and Virginia.

“This game, I thought we came out and we were really together (as opposed to the Virginia game), our guys were talking more defensively, I thought we were more cohesive,” Neptune said. “I thought sometimes in the Virginia game we were more discombobulated, not knowing exactly the spots we were supposed to be in. Unfortunately, we are a team with nine new players that are learning how to play together. We just have to keep getting better.”

One area in which the Wildcats failed against Virginia was getting out and defending the perimeter. The Cavaliers shot 56% (14/25) from three-point range, though held the sharp-shooting Quakers to 29.2%.

“We’re more cohesive and that’s a lot of credit to our guys,” Neptune said.

The loss was the third-straight setback for Penn, which fell to 2-3 overall, and received a team-high 9 points from Michael Zanoni.

“I’m obviously disappointed,” Quakers’ coach Steve Donahue said. “We have a lot of work to do for sure. There are two overriding things for me: I can see the mental stress on the guys who haven’t been through this before, and Kyle is going through this, but I have never been through three new players at the top of your lineup, two freshmen.

“It’s all new. When things go wrong, they seem to snowball. The confidence isn’t there. You are not afraid to make mistakes on both sides of the ball. I’ve been through this a couple of times before. I like getting punched in the mouth. I know it sounds crazy. We need to stick together.”

Donahue stressed during their nine days off that the Quakers would be going “back to camp.”    

The Quakers simply had no answer for the 6-foot-8, 265-pound Dixon, who resembles a pulling offensive guard when he goes rambling down the court. Anything Dixon wanted to do, he did. Anywhere he wanted to go, he went. No one was about to get in his way, and if they risked that, maintenance workers would have been needed to pry them loose with crowbars from the Finneran Pavilion hardwood.

With 4:37 left, Dixon came out after a full night. His 23 points came on 9 of 14 shooting with six rebounds, and two assists.

He was a one-man wrecking machine.

Villanova and the Quakers were knotted at 26-26 with 8:55 left in the first half after Penn’s Johnnie Walter canned a three-pointer after a Villanova turnover. That seemed to set off a switch for the Wildcats, who went on a 17-0 tear to close the half and rip open the game. Rebounding was a key. Villanova’s superior size led to a 21-12 rebound disparity at the half. Nova’s Brickus and Josiah Moseley combined for nine of the Wildcats’ 17 points during the game-changing run.

Penn finally broke its 10-minute, 33-second scoring draught with 18:22 left in the half on a Walter free throw. By then, the Wildcats were soundly ahead, 43-27. A driving layup by George Smith with 15:01 to play snapped Penn’s 13-minute, 54-second spell without a field goal.

“That’s who we have to be (defensively),” Neptune said. “I thought we were way more cohesive. Guys were together, we were talking. Our switches were better. I thought overall we played a great defensive game. They made some tough shots, a couple of tipped loose balls they took advantage of in the beginning. But I thought our guys were really focused defensively.”

Penn finally reached 40 with 7:08 to play in the game on a Michelangelo Oberti free throw. The Wildcats hit 40 with 1:58 left in the first half.

Too many times Penn weaved its offense on the perimeter, looking for the three, and too many times the shot clock wound down with the Quakers forcing bad shots.

Former Penn star Tyler Perkins finished with 12 points for the Wildcats. He said he treated this game against his former team like any other game. But Neptune felt compelled to laud the former Quaker on his intensity and setting the tone early, hitting the first bucket of the game.

“We were just trying to play Villanova basketball,” Perkins said. “This was like every other game. You have to prepare mentally with scouting and everything like that, and we were all locked in and we played Villanova basketball.”

With 7:44 left to play, the late-arriving crowd left early, with Villanova securely ahead, 67-39, and secure in the slippage of last season would not creep back again—for the moment.

This team still has a lot of prove.

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Joseph Santoliquito is an award-winning sportswriter based in the Philadelphia area who began writing for CoBL in 2021 and is the president of the Boxing Writers Association of America. He can be followed on BlueSky by clicking here.