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

Villanova capped off the 2025 calendar year on New Year’s Eve with a 71-66 second-half comeback win over DePaul on Wednesday at Finneran Pavilion.

Villanova (11-2, 2-0 Big East) defeated DePaul (8-6, 0-3) for the fourth straight time after trailing by as many as 10 points. It marked Villanova’s 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 head 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, tying a team-high 19 points that included back-to-back three-pointers in a second-half scoring run to complete Villanova’s comeback.

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

Junior guard Tyler Perkins scored a team-high 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 on KenPom, shot 46.2% from the field to help them to a halftime lead.

At the beginning of the season, Willard was not big on 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, it was the defense that 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 (39th) on KenPom.

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

In its previous game, Villanova held Seton Hall to its lowest scoring performance 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 back-to-back three-pointers on consecutive possessions to mark an 8-0 scoring run.

Perkins then knocked down two three-pointers with the second one tying the game at 56. Villanova’s scoring run grew to as large as 21-8 with under five minutes left to play.

Villanova, which has led the nation in free throw shooting over the previous four years, struggled at the free throw line against DePaul, hitting just 21 of 31 (67%). The Wildcats’ foul shooting has been off all season, just 62% going into Wednesday’s game, which ranks 262nd 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 [bleep].”

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