City of Basketball Love

Stephen Pianovich (@SPianovich)
--

After letting Georgetown stick around for the game’s first 30 minutes, Villanova was not about to let itself get upset in the Big East quarterfinals for the second time in three seasons.

The Wildcats pulled away for an 81-67 win on Thursday afternoon at Madison Square Garden, a victory that was fueled by a 14-1 run midway through the second half. The No. 3 Wildcats got 25 points from Josh Hart and will face the winner of Butler-Providence in Friday night’s semifinal.

Villanova, the No. 1 seed in the Big East quarterfinals, trailed 47-46 at the 10:37 mark of the second half when Georgetown’s L.J. Peak drained a 3-pointer. But that’s when the Wildcats took over.

They scored six points in the next 68 seconds to go back up by five, and Jay Wright’s team eventually stretched that lead to 60-48 just about three minutes after Peak’s triple.

Hart and senior guard Ryan Arcidiacono evenly split 12 of Villanova’s 14 points during the game-changing spurt. Arcidiacono hit a pair of 3-pointers, while Hart capped the run with an old-fashioned three-point play on a fast break. Arcidiacono, who finished with 19 points and hit five of his seven 3-pointers, had the assist on the play.

"We couldn't get those guys going," Villanova coach Jay Wright told reporters afterward. "We have to just continue to play defense, hang in until we can break free. I think once -- we had a couple of shots and got out to transition. Josh is I think one of the best players in the country in transition. That got us going, and we were able to get some good things in the half-court offense."

The run was part of a second half in which the Wildcats outscored the Hoyas by 13 points, and it was their second win over eighth-seeded Georgetown in five days. They downed the Hoyas, 84-71, in the regular season finale on Saturday at the Wells Fargo Center.

The second half erased a slow first half for Villanova which saw the team get outrebounded 20-8 and miss 10 of its final 12 shots going into the intermission. The only two field goals the Wildcats hit in the final nine minutes of the first half were 3-pointers from Kris Jenkins, who finished the game with 15 points.

It’s the third time in as many years the Wildcats are the top seed in the conference tournament. They’re looking to defend last year’s title, and were able to avoid repeating a performance from 2014 when they were knocked off by Seton Hall in their first game.

Villanova senior Daniel Ochefu was slowed by an ankle injury and played just 13 minutes, going scoreless on 0-of-2 shooting. 

"He couldn't practice yesterday, so we didn't know. We really didn't know," Wright said of the pregame plan with his  big man. "The plan was let's -- we had a choice to try to let him go yesterday in practice see what he got or rest him and see what he got today. We went with today. He tried a little bit. I think it got tweaked again. He tried.