The No. 5-ranked UConn Huskies, looking for a more complete performance against a Villanova Wildcats team that took them to the limit less than a month ago, came into the Xfinity Mobile Arena and used a dominant second half to pull away from the Wildcats, earning a 73–63 win. Villanova held on for as long as they could before eventually succumbing to the better team.
Coming off January's overtime road loss to the Huskies, Villanova knew they could hang with the No. 5-ranked team in the nation, and that confidence was on full display in the first half. The Wildcats proved unafraid and ready for the challenge, and, with the home crowd on their side, challenged Dan Hurley's squad, at least in the first half.
Tyler Perkins got Villanova off to a fast start. He would score the game's first bucket on a turn-around jumper in the lane before hitting his first two longballs to tally a quick eight points for himself in the opening minutes. Once Perkins cooled off, it was Acaden Lewis's turn to carry the offensive load for Villanova in order to keep them afloat.
Lewis had his fingerprints all over the first half. He scored 11 points, dished out two of the Wildcats' three total assists, grabbed an offensive rebound, and rejected two shots. With scoring hard to find across the rest of the roster, every point Lewis and Perkins poured in was crucial as they faced a much more egalitarian effort from the Huskies.
UConn put on a masterclass in team-oriented, know-your-role basketball. Silas Demary Jr. controlled the pace of the game and settled his team down whenever the moment called for it. Tarris Reed Jr. imposed his will by the basket on both ends of the floor. Solo Ball played the unassuming, off-ball guard role perfectly. Alex Karaban was a force cutting through the paint and post for easy buckets, and he played stout defense on the other end of the floor. Braylon Mullins kept Villanova's defense on skis as he covered every single inch of the floor and beautifully navigated screens for open pull-up jumpers.
"It helps when you play someone for the second time. I thought we did a better job of cutting. But there's two sides to it. I'm sure Kevin [Willard] is going to look at the film and tell his guys they blew a switch or what have you, but we blew the game against Creighton because we stopped attacking the rim," said UConn coach Dan Hurley, about his team's game plan to exploit Villanova's interior defense. "We stopped putting major pressure on the paint and started shooting bad mid-range jumpers in that game, so I thought we learned from that debacle."
UConn may have only held a two-point lead heading into halftime, but the disparity in workload expenditure was enormous. The Huskies were the beneficiaries of much cleaner looks and had the luxury of putting in less effort to get those looks. UConn coasted to its 34 points in the first half, shooting 57.7 percent from the field. Villanova had to scratch and claw their way to their 32, and by the time they entered the locker room, they were already beginning to wear down.
The Huskies would not allow Villanova to stick around much longer. UConn’s advantages became overwhelming in the second half. Reed Jr. was impossible to stop physically; Demary Jr. continued to play the game at his preferred speed; and Karaban and Mullins found themselves constantly open coming off screens from every level.
"Tarris Reed does not get enough credit as a defender; he's a very smart basketball player as a center. He knew four or five of our playcalls where he jumped the plays, and you just don't see centers do that very much," said Villanova coach Kevin Willard following the game. "When he's playing the way he played tonight, they're going to be tough to beat. He was jumping our high-post action, his pick-and-roll defense was really smart, he hedged when he wanted to and didn't hedge when guys were diving under picks. And Silas Demary Jr. is as good a guard as we have in this league, and he just runs their stuff really well. He doesn't try to do too much, makes the plays he has to. They're a really good team."
Villanova had one more offensive rebound than UConn for the game, but every single one the Huskies came away with felt backbreaking because Villanova never could seize the momentum they needed to truly fight back. To make matters worse in that department, UConn crushed Villanova on the defensive glass. UConn also pulverized the Wildcats' interior defense all game long, and their bench unit outscored Villanova's by 14. Too many things went wrong in such a short amount of game time, which no team can afford against a Dan Hurley-led team.
Once UConn raced out to a 10-point lead just three and a half minutes into the second half, Villanova never recovered from the early second-half run. Expending so much energy in the first half made for a lumbering, almost lackadaisical second half on the offensive end. The Wildcats were struggling to get into their sets and couldn't overcome the Huskies' physicality. UConn was admirably fighting over Villanova's screens so they could not turn the corner and get them in rotation off of pick-and-roll, either.
"Every once in a while, you get your ass kicked," said Kevin Willard about what happened in the second half. "I think the last one we had was Michigan. We bounced back really well against them. We’ve been playing good basketball. You’ve just got to bounce back. It’s not the end of the world. That’s a good basketball team. They’re coming off a tough loss against Creighton. I thought their defensive intensity was so much different than it was against Creighton. I think them being on the road was probably good for them at this point. Sometimes you come off a tough home loss, you go on the road, and you can really find a way. I think Danny did a great job with his team with that.”
Dan Hurley pressed all the right buttons tonight, and his team executed perfectly. The UConn Huskies were the more sound, more physical, and more together team, as their victory over the Villanova Wildcats was not as close as the 73-63 final score would suggest. UConn's win brings the all-time series with Villanova to a 40-40 tie after 80 games.
