Defense rescues sluggish Villanova in a Big East home win over DePaul

Villanova capped 2025 with a 71-66 comeback win over DePaul on New Year’s Eve at Finneran Pavilion.

Villanova (11-2, 2-0 Big East) trailed DePaul (8-6, 0-3) by as many as 10 points in the second half but rallied for its fourth straight win. It was the Wildcats’ first victory of the season after trailing at halftime.

“I mean, I thought we did a good job battling and still playing hard while not playing well,” Villanova coach Kevin Willard said. “And when you have a young team, sometimes it could be a little frustrating when you’re not playing well offensively, it kind of affects your defense. I thought we hung in there as close as we could while not playing overly well offensively.”

The Wildcats were limited to 27.3% from the field in the first half.

Redshirt sophomore guard Bryce Lindsay continued his sharpshooting, scoring a team-high-tying 19 points that included back-to-back three-pointers in a second-half scoring run to help complete Villanova’s comeback.

Lindsay is averaging a team-leading 16.8 points, which is second in the Big East. He also is shooting a conference-best 44.8% from beyond the arc.

Junior guard Tyler Perkins also scored 19 points, his fifth game of the season in double digits and second in the last three games.

» READ MORE: Forged in Baltimore, Bryce Lindsay has overcome his share of adversity. Now he’s Villanova’s leading scorer.

DePaul, which entered the game ranked 187th offensively by KenPom.com, shot 46.2% from the field to help itself to a halftime lead.

At the beginning of the season, Willard didn’t like how Villanova was executing defensively. He thought there was “nothing” good with it when asked about it in November. However, in the win over DePaul, the defense allowed Villanova to stay close.

“I think we have had a really good pick-and-roll defense,” Willard said. “I think sometimes coming back after Christmas break, you’re just not as sharp. And you got to give Chris [Holtmann] and [DePaul’s] staff credit. They just kept running the same play, and it was just a matter of we had to take that away and just make sure they were not getting too many easy layups. So we switched into a zone and just had the guards take the pick and rolls and scramble.”

Villanova is now ranked higher defensively (35th) than offensively (40th) on KenPom.

Willard was happy with how the team played physically and defensively despite not playing well on offense.

In their previous game, a 64-56 win over Seton Hall on Dec. 23, the Wildcats held the Pirates to their lowest-scoring output of the season.

After trailing at the five-minute mark of the first half, Villanova found itself down by 10 points midway through the second half. It was DePaul’s largest lead of the game.

» READ MORE: Tyler Perkins embraces his many roles at Villanova. This year, it’s about being a leader.

Then, graduate guard Devin Askew knocked down a pair of free throws to cut DePaul’s lead to eight points. Villanova regained possession, and Lindsay sank three-pointers on consecutive possessions to cap an 8-0 scoring run.

Just over three minutes later, Perkins knocked down two three-pointers, the second of which tied the game at 56. Villanova’s scoring run reached 21-8 with under five minutes left to play.

Villanova, which led the nation in free-throw shooting in three of the previous four seasons, struggled at the line against DePaul, hitting just 21 of 31 (67.7%). This season, the Wildcats are shooting just 68.8% from the line, which is 269th out of 365 Division I teams.

“No, I mean, [Matt Hodge, 6-for-9 from the line] just had a tough night,” Willard said. “I think in the first half we still had Christmas cookies in our stomach, it seemed like. Duke [Brennan, 3-for-7] is going to be Duke. We’re working with Duke every day, and Duke’s working hard on it. Duke’s the only one that we’re really working with [on free throws]. Everybody else, they’re good shooters. It’s just sometimes you eat too many Christmas cookies, your free throws go to [expletive].”

Villanova travels to Indianapolis to face Butler (10-4, 1-2) on Saturday (noon, TNT/truTV). Butler is coming off an 89-85 loss at Creighton on Tuesday. Villanova leads the all-time series, 19-7, and has won the last three meetings.