City of Basketball Love

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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Kris Jenkins had one of the best individual performances by any Big East player this season, scoring a career-best 31 points to help Villanova to an 83-62 win over DePaul on Tuesday night.

At First…
‘Nova junior Josh Hart scored the first six points of the game as Villanova jumped out to an 11-3 lead at the first media timeout. DePaul started out 1-for-4 with four turnovers on its first seven possessions before a 7-0 run closed the gap to a single point just past the five-minute mark.

Turning Point…
Jenkins hit back-to-back triples to spark a personal 14-0 run that put Villanova up 25-10 with 10:26 remaining. The junior forward seemingly couldn’t miss from that point onward, as his fifth triple of the first half helped ‘Nova out to a 51-33 halftime lead. To begin the second half, Jenkins hit two more triples to set a new career mark and push the advantage to 24; DePaul did not get within xx points the rest of the way.

Standout Stars…
Jenkins continued a resurgent stretch of games with the first 30-point outing by a 'Nova player all year. The 6-foot-6, 240-pound junior wing had averaged 19.0 ppg over the previous four and surpassed that with 1:39 left in the first half on his fifth triple of the game. After averaging fewer than 10 ppg through the first 16 games of the year, he's averaging 16.0 ppg through the teams' last 13 games. Hart added 18 for the Wildcats.

Noteworthy Number(s)…
26: With the win, Villanova reached the 26-win mark for the third year in a row but just the seventh time in program history. They’re three wins shy of becoming just the third group of Wildcats to reach the 30-win plateau, and are seven off the program-record 33-win mark set a year ago.

Up Next…
Villanova (26-4, 15-2 Big East) vs. Georgetown (March 5, Noon)
DePaul (9-20, 3-14 Big East) vs. Seton Hall (March 5, 11 AM)