Jay Wright wants his Villanova players to be more ready for Big East opponents’ best shots, starting with Marquette

Jay Wright tells anyone who is willing to listen that there’s never an easy night in the Big East, that the difference between winning and losing against any conference team is very small.

That was true last Wednesday night when St. John’s took the Wildcats out of pretty much everything they wanted to do and handed them their first Big East loss. And it wasn’t much easier Sunday when Georgetown was still within five points with a minute left in what became an 84-74 Nova win.

Of course, Villanova fans were stunned by the loss to the Red Storm, and somewhat bothered that the sub-.500 Hoyas gave them a game. But Wright, whose team dropped a couple of notches to No. 5 in this week’s Associated Press poll, will tell you every game is a battle, and he expects the same Wednesday night when Marquette visits Finneran Pavilion.

Still, Wright’s evaluation of the Wildcats (12-2, 7-1 Big East) is that he’d like them to better comprehend that they must be prepared to take their opponents’ best shot.

“This is such a weird year,” he said Tuesday after practice. “I don’t feel like we — and I’m a part of it — are handling that well this year. I feel like we’ve had a lot of bad starts where we get smacked in the mouth.

“I don’t think we’ve had that consistency of understanding the level we have to play at every night, like in that first game against Seton Hall [on Jan. 19] after being out for a while. You’ve got the Virginia Tech game [an overtime loss Nov. 28] when we were a little tired and maybe weren’t ready. I feel like there are some reasons, but I don’t feel like we’re understanding the intensity with which teams come at us.”

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Wright said the Wildcats were getting on a roll when they last played Marquette (9-10, 5-8) on Dec. 23 in Milwaukee, an 85-68 victory in which they placed five players in double figures and hit 13 threes — six of them by Collin Gillespie. But that was the last game they would play for 27 days because of two pauses following positive COVID-19 tests.

“I know every team is dealing with it, I’m just trying to be honest about how we evaluate ourselves,” he said. “We had played a number of games in a row, and we were kind of starting to get into our groove. We were fired up coming home from that game, and I feel like we haven’t gotten it back yet.”

The Golden Eagles have lost four of their last five games, with three of the defeats in that stretch coming in overtime, by two points, and by three points. They have six players averaging 8.1 points or more, with point guard D.J. Carton leading the team with 12.7 points per game.

Forward Dawson Garcia, the preseason Big East freshman of the year, leads all conference freshmen in scoring (12.5) and rebounding (6.7).

“Every time we get a chance to play a game and the tests come back negative, I’m happy,” Wright said. “So we can play. I’m a happy man, happy to be playing Marquette. They’re much improved since the last game we played them. We expect another tough Big East game.”

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