Villanova Falls Flat in Loss to UConn

PHILADELPHIA– I’ll be honest, there’s really not much to say about this one.

UConn dictated the game for pretty much its entirety, maintaining a lead that hovered between eight and 14 points for most of the second half and ended 71-59.

The Huskies did a fantastic job at limiting what Villanova could do on offense for pretty much the entire game.

“I thought they got into us,” Villanova Head Coach Kyle Neptune said. “They make you miss, there’s a reason why their defensive numbers are where they are, there’s a reason for that.”

The Wildcats shot 36 percent from the field (20/55) and 25 percent from beyond the arc (7/28).

“They force you into tough shots,” Neptune said. “I thought we forced them into tough shots, I thought they made some tough shots, I thought they got some offensive rebounds, timely offensive rebounds that really helped them, I thought they played with a sense of urgency from the start, I thought they did a good job from the jump.”

A couple of unlucky loose ball rebounds allowed UConn to drain a few threes to start the second half. If the ball rolls the other way, maybe we’re talking about a different outcome here.

“Those type of things happen,” Neptune said. “I’m sure when we go back and watch the film there’ll be 30-40 plays that had nothing to do with making tough shots, just small things that if we changed those things we’d have a different result.”

Nobody really did anything fantastic or eye-opening for either team and quite frankly, for someone who has a takeaway for just about everything, I really don’t have one here other than it was an off shooting night for the Wildcats.

UConn was ranked 14th and they looked like the 14th ranked team on Saturday night as Wells Fargo Center and Villanova looked like a bubble team against a superior opponent.

“We played against a pretty good team, I thought they came out, set the tone, played the game on their terms, hats off to them, I thought they did a good job.” Neptune said.

Villanova was led by 17 points from Justin Moore who shot 7/15 from the floor and 3/10 from three. Cam Whitmore had 14 points.

For Villanova, the loss snapped a 3-game winning streak and a stretch that saw them win six of their last seven games. They will try to regain momentum heading into Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden where they’ll play lowly Georgetown on Wednesday at 8:00.

“Our mindset all year has been a game by game mindset and to go out and prepare for one team.” Neptune said. “For us we just try to go practice by practice, game by game.”