Duke Brennan’s career night displays Villanova’s inside-out game as conference play looms

Villanova took its lumps earlier this week when it traveled to Ann Arbor to face what is probably the best team in the country in second-ranked Michigan.

Duke Brennan’s night had to have been discouraging. The Wildcats’ senior center, who leads the nation in rebounding, scored five points on four shots and grabbed a season-low six rebounds. He had four fouls and two turnovers in 22 minutes. Michigan is big and athletic. Its center, Aday Mara, is 7-foot-3, five inches taller than Brennan. Villanova lost by 28, and was really never in the game.

But the Wildcats flew home from Michigan, landed around midnight on Tuesday night, took Wednesday off, and returned to the practice floor Thursday.

“You got to bounce back, especially after bad losses,” Brennan said Saturday. “We had two great days of practice. That prepared us for the game.”

Villanova coach Kevin Willard concurred. He said the practices were strong, and he felt his team showed Saturday that it had let a tough loss go in the way it performed.

Brennan set a new career-high with 24 points, and Bryce Lindsay also scored 24 as Villanova controlled the game and pulled away from Pittsburgh in the second half in a 79-61 victory.

The Wildcats, who are in the top 50 in college basketball in three-pointers attempted, showed a balanced inside-outside attack in the process. Brennan wasn’t up against Mara, but Cameron Corhen was no slouch at 6-10, 235 pounds who averaged 14 points and nine rebounds heading into Saturday. Brennan had his way inside. He made all eight of his attempts from the floor and was 8-for-10 from the free-throw line, a positive development for the transfer from Grand Canyon, who entered Saturday having made just 52% of his free throws.

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Brennan, who played a season-high 34 minutes, was active. The Wildcats used him as a screener and fed him when he rolled. Their guards executed dribble hand-offs with Brennan and, because Brennan had it going, it freed up shooters like Lindsay, who was 4-for-11 from deep, and Matt Hodge, who made two of his four attempts from three-point range.

“I think Duke’s biggest strength is his energy, how hard he plays, his rebounding,” Willard said. “But when we can get him some points down low, I think it rewards him for how hard he plays throughout the game. It also keeps him involved and keeps him happy a little bit, to be honest with you.”

“I think the more we can get Duke involved in pick-and-rolls and get him on rolls, it just puts pressure on the weak-side defense. When you have young guards and you have a team that hasn’t been together overly long, sometimes it just takes a little time to kind of know what works and what doesn’t work.”

It is all clicking right now for Villanova, save for the 40-minute hell that is playing Michigan right now.

Freshman point guard Acaden Lewis kept his positive play going with 11 points and seven assists. He had just one turnover, and the Wildcats had just three on the day. They had 20 assists on 26 makes.

The performance needs to be put in the proper context, though. While Pitt may be a power-conference opponent, the Panthers have struggled so far in 2025. They dropped to 5-6 with Saturday’s loss, and they entered Saturday ranked 163rd in the NCAA’s NET rankings. That made Saturday’s victory of the Quad 4 variety for Villanova, which at least for now makes it as valuable come March as Villanova’s Nov. 11 victory over Sacred Heart.

Villanova is 8-2, and its best win, at least according to KenPom metrics, is Saturday’s victory over Pitt, which was ranked 118th after the game.

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There’s something to be said for winning the games you’re supposed to. Villanova’s three-year NCAA Tournament drought is dotted with slip-ups. But it’s never too early to start looking ahead to March, especially with the Wildcats through 10 of their 11 nonconference games.

ESPN bracket master Joe Lunardi had Villanova as his first team out of the NCAA Tournament field as of Saturday morning before the Wildcats played a game that couldn’t help them by winning and could only hurt them by losing.

Up next is Wisconsin, though. A victory over the Badgers in Milwaukee Friday night would be Villanova’s only win outside of Quad 4 before Big East play starts. It would be a good feather in the cap of the Wildcats, who entered Saturday 37th in NET and were at No. 34 in KenPom after the win.

Big East play will be here soon enough — Dec. 23 to be exact, a road game at Willard’s old school, Seton Hall, which improved to 10-1 with a win over Rutgers Saturday.

The Wildcats have essentially two bubble games next before the holiday break. They at least avoided a major blunder Saturday by handling Pitt, and their balanced attack, with Brennan’s scoring inside, should prove valuable moving forward.