Villanova heads to New York to play St. John’s Wednesday, then will host Georgetown after Xavier game is postponed

Another day, another postponement for Villanova.

Sunday’s game against Xavier at Finneran Pavilion has been called off because of positive tests in the Musketeers’ program, the Big East announced Tuesday. The Wildcats’ game next Tuesday against DePaul also has been postponed, but the Big East filled the gap with a home contest Feb. 10 against Marquette, rescheduling a Jan. 8 game.

A source late Tuesday night confirmed a report from CBS Insider Jon Rothstein that Georgetown would be the opponent for Villanova in Sunday’s game at the Pavilion.

Prior to the news, there was speculation that the third-ranked Wildcats and No. 1 Gonzaga could be working on a weekend game at a neutral site since both teams had the weekend off. Coaches Jay Wright of ‘Nova and Mark Few of the Zags were in constant contact earlier this season to line up a game, but couldn’t pull it off.

However, Wright said Tuesday that playing games in the Big East is a top priority. The Wildcats (11-1, 6-0 conference), who have won nine straight, have played five fewer league games than St. John’s (11-7, 5-6) going into Wednesday night’s matchup at Carnesecca Arena in Queens.

“He’s the master scheduler,” Wright said of Few. “He had us with him and Baylor and Virginia earlier in the year. But I told him, our priority has to be the Big East first. If we can get a Big East game, we’ve got to play the Big East game. We owe it to the Big East. We prevented so many teams from playing games, so we have to do that.”

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Four Villanova games were postponed during the Wildcats’ 27-day pause that ended Jan. 18. The Wildcats still must make up games at Connecticut, and home and away versus both Xavier and DePaul.

The Wildcats will have their hands full with the Red Storm, winners of four in a row, and their fullcourt press. They lead the nation in fewest turnovers per game at 8.3 but St. John’s forces 17.4 turnovers on average, 14th in Division I.

“I think it’s a very disciplined, chaotic way to play,” Wright said. “It’s chaotic for the team going against them. They’re actually very smart about how they execute it. It makes teams like us uncomfortable and that’s really what you’re supposed to do. We’ve got to execute within that chaos.”

Senior Collin Gillespie, who is fourth in the nation with a 4.67 assist-turnover ratio and has turned the ball over 12 times in 12 games, said the Wildcats have to be smart in running their press offense.

“Staying solid and being strong with the ball, making sure we come back to meet passes, doing what we do, running out press offense and attacking to score,” Gillespie said. “It’s something we work on every day. We just have to stick to our concepts, stick to our habits.”

Freshman guard Posh Alexander posted six steals in the Red Storm’s win Sunday over Marquette, and is seventh in the nation at 2.72 steals per game.

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