Eric Dixon delivers again as Villanova advances in the College Basketball Crown

On the surface, the cliches for Villanova’s 60-59 win over Southern Cal are all there for the taking.

Yes, the Wildcats battled to the bitter end to save their season for an opportunity to end what’s been an otherwise disappointing year by Villanova standards on a high note.

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But then reality sets in, and you realize that the Wildcats barely defeated a mediocre Trojans team in the quarterfinal round of Fox Sports’ inaugural College Basketball Crown.

They scratched and clawed with a USC team that entered the contest with just 17 wins and were down by as much as 12 in the second half.

If it wasn’t for second-half heroics from Eric Dixon, who finished with a game-high 28 points, 24 of which came in the second half, the Kevin Willard era would have started sooner than expected.

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Instead, the Wildcats have made it to the Final Four of the first-year tournament, and will face Central Florida on Saturday (4 p.m., FS1) for a chance to play the winner of Nebraska vs. Boise State in the championship game Sunday (5:30 p.m., Fox29).

“They took it to us in the first half,” said interim head coach Mike Nardi, who replaced Kyle Neptune last month. “But I thought in the second half, we continued to grind and grind and turned it up on defense.”

The Wildcats figured out how to slow down USC’s offense, specifically the explosiveness of Rashaun Agee, who scored a team-high 22 points, most of which deserved a spot in SportsCenter’s Top 10.

Agee, in fact, was the catalyst as USC took a lead that reached double digits at 41-29 with a little more than 15 minutes remaining in regulation.

However, the Wildcats appear to be having fun through it all. Jhamir Brickus and Philly native Wooga Poplar smiled repeatedly and the duo did aid in Dixon’s big night. Poplar was three boards shy of a double-double, finishing with 16 points and seven rebounds, and Brickus added 10 points.

Even Nardi breathed a sigh of relief, pumped his fist, and flashed a smile after the game. Perhaps it’s the feeling that he might be coaching himself into a top position somewhere should Willard not retained him. Or maybe it’s the fact that he guaranteed that at least $50,000 will be divvied up by his players in name, image, and likeness payouts.

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The Crown features a total purse of $500,000, with $300,000 awarded to the winner, $100,000 to the team that finishes second, and $50,000 to the teams that come up short in Saturday’s semifinal.

If Villanova wants a little more than a split of $50,000, it’ll need to do a bit more than ride Dixon, the nation’s leading scorer, who wore a heating pad on the sideline for a time coming out of the halftime break.

UCF (19-14), which finished the regular season at the bottom of the Big 12 Conference, enters Saturday’s game with narrow wins over Oregon State (76-75) and Cincinnati (88-80).

“I just want to say one thing defensively about Eric [Dixon] tonight,” Nardi said. “End of the game … getting stops, he got that last rebound, which was huge for our team. As a leader here, we always talk to our guys about defending and rebounding. I know he had 28 points, but that really sealed the game for us and was a big-time play from him. I appreciated that.”

For some, it might’ve been the first glimpse of former Penn standout Clark Slajchert, who transferred to USC at the end of last season. Slajchert, the former All-Ivy second-team and All-Big 5 first-team guard, looked overmatched against the Wildcats and struggled to find any rhythm — and the ball from his teammates. He finished the game scoreless in his 20 minutes. … The Wildcats shot just 37.9% from the field and got all their points from the starting five.

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