Villanova Hoops First Half
The Villanova Wildcats are coming off a big win vs Xavier on Super Bowl Sunday. On Wednesday, Eric Dixon and the rest of the Wildcats’ would host Rick Pitino and the number 9th ranked St Johns Red Storm. This one would be a Big East battle to remember. In the end, Villanova upsets No.9 St. Johns off Tyler Perkins’ clutch 3-pointer.
To get things going for Nova, Wooga Poplar had it going with 6 points early on. St Johns and Adam Scott were knocking down their shots from deep. Villanova’s Jordan Longino hit a 3 to make it 13 all at the first timeout.
Poplar would continue his early scoring, attacking the rim as he took over offensively for the Wildcats. Poplar scored 8 points in the first 10 minutes of play. Poplar and Villanova star, Eric Dixon would hit back to back three’s to extend Villanova’s lead to 25-19. Red Storm Head Coach Rick Pitino was forced to call a timeout and regroup his guys. It wouldn’t help much as the shots from deep kept falling for Nova. Tyler Perkins would drill a deep three to make the Wildcats lead 10 with 5:47 left in the first half.
Sadiku Ibine Ayo would help stop the bleeding for the Red Storm and knocked down a three off a nice Kadary Richmond assist. Richmond would follow up his assist with a bucket of his own. He had a nice move to the rim to get the and 1 on a great play out of the timeout. St Johns would get even closer after a Nova technical foul. Simeon Wilcher knocked down 1-2 free throws. St Johns defense would come up huge in the final three minutes of the half. Lefteris Liotopoulos’ three right before the half made it 34-32 Villanova heading into the locker room.
First Half Stats
The Wildcats shooting in the first half was pretty impressive going 52 % from the field while holding the Red Storm to 36.7% from the field. It was St Johns three point shooting that kept them in the game, knocking down 7made three pointers to Villanova’s 4 made three’s.
Villanova Hoops Second Half
Kadary Richmond came out of the locker room ready to play in the second half for the Red Storm. He had a slam dunk and helped force a turnover that resulted in a St Johns three pointer that gave them a three point lead to start the half.
The three point shootout would continue as Tyler Perkins drained a three followed by a deep Wooga Poplar triple to help regain the lead for Nova. Pitino would be forced to call a timeout but just like in the first half, it didnt help cool off the Wildcats. Wooga came out of the timeout and had back to back slam dunks that sent the crowd inside Finneran Pavilion into a frenzy.
RJ Luis Jr and Adam Scott would help the Red Storm get to within 1 with 8:06 left after some solid shooting. Zuby Ejiofor gave St Johns the lead back on his put back layup when he got the offensive rebound off the Richmond miss.
Eric Dixon had a quiet night until it was crunch time. Dixon would sink back to back triples that almost made the fans lift the roof off of Finneran with how loud it got. Dixon’s 2nd triple of the back to back three’s gave the Wildcats a 6 point lead .
St Johns wouldn’t quit though. Kadary Richmond would bring them to within 2 when he got fouled on a made layup but failed to convert the free throw with 1:15 remaining in the game. The ending would be Big East basketball at its finest. St Johns Simeon Wilcher would knock down a triple that left the fans stunned. The three gave St Johns a 71-70 lead with 27.3 seconds left.
Big East Basketball
The great shooting night for Villanova would continue as Tyler Perkins drained a three right in front of the Villanova bench that sent Finneran Pavilion fans going crazy with 8.7 seconds left on the clock. Villanova would get the stop they needed and the 73-71 victory. Villanova upsets no.9 St Johns and pushes their win streak to 3 games.
Next up for the Wildcats is a trip to Rhode Island to take on Providence on Saturday as they look to extend the winning streak to 4 games.