Villanova holds off Marquette

When Villanova's lead over Marquette improved to 22 points with a little more than 13 minutes to play yesterday, many fans at the Pavilion cheered. Some rubbed their eyes in disbelief.

As for Jay Wright, the Wildcats coach figured his team had a chance.

"When you're up 20, you think, all right, we're going to hold on to it," he said, "but you learn from that."

The sixth-ranked Wildcats almost coughed up the entire advantage. The Golden Eagles came back amid a furious flurry of three-point baskets and actually had a possession to take the lead, but Villanova held on for a 78-76 Big East Conference victory.

The Cats (14-1, 3-0 Big East) couldn't keep up on defense with Marquette's sharp passing and ability to find the open man down the stretch. Offensively, Villanova preferred to rush rather than work the clock, several times making a move to the basket with 20 or more seconds remaining on the shot timer.

But in the Big East, a win is a win, no matter how it's achieved, and you take a deep breath and look ahead to the next game, which, in Villanova's case, is tomorrow night at Louisville.

"We're going to learn a lot from this game," Wright said. "We made mistakes defensively in the second half, but it was because they're so good moving the ball and finding your mistakes. In the first half, we probably played the best half of defense we've played in a long, long time."

The Wildcats led, 31-19, at the break, holding Marquette to 30.4 percent shooting, and kept the heat on early in the second half. Back-to-back baskets by Reggie Redding gave them a pair of 22-point leads - the final one at 52-30 with 13 minutes, 20 seconds to play.

Incredibly, the Golden Eagles (10-6, 1-3) scored on 18 of their next 21 possessions to narrow the gap to 75-71 with 2:10 remaining. At one point during this run, they hit six consecutive three-point shots - four by Lazar Hayward.

Just before Marquette closed to within four, the Wildcats were in the middle of three turnovers in four possessions. On two of the miscues, Corey Fisher tried to make something happen with plenty of time on the shot clock.

"We want to be aggressive, especially on a team like that," Wright said, defending the decision not to hold the basketball. "If that was a team that sat back and let you run your stuff, you would have [worked the clock].

"But they get in you and they're physical defensively and you can't make passes, so you've got to drive the ball. They speed you up, and that's what makes them so good."

It got exceptionally tense when Scottie Reynolds lost the basketball and Hayward was hammered by Corey Stokes on a layup attempt. The officials ruled an intentional foul, infuriating all but the cluster of yellow-clad Marquette fans in the upper reaches, and Hayward hit two free throws that made it 75-73 with 27 seconds to play.

On the Golden Eagles' ensuing possession, Jimmy Butler was double-teamed in the lane and lost the ball to Antonio Pena, who hit two free throws at the 8.4-second mark. Dominic Cheek's free throw made it a five-point game, and Marquette's Darius Johnson-Odom drained a three-ball at the buzzer.

"In the first half, we showed the type of team we can be," said Reynolds, who scored 15 points. "There's no limit on this team if we can do that for 40 minutes. But right now, we're not capable of doing it for 40 minutes, and that's our goal."

Stokes, who missed a game with a strained hamstring, scored 16 points to pace Villanova's five starters in double figures. After being held down in the first half by foul trouble, Hayward scored 18 of his 20 points in the second half.

The Golden Eagles, who fell to the Wildcats, 74-72, a week ago in Milwaukee, have lost their three Big East games by a total of five points.