The Golden Eagles head to Philadelphia looking to extend a winning streak and officially end the Wildcats’ NCAA tournament hopes.
#16 Marquette Golden Eagles (20-6, 11-4 Big East) at Villanova Wildcats (15-12, 8-8 Big East)
Date: Friday, February 21, 2025
Time: 6pm Central
Location: Wells Fargo Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Marquette Stat Leaders
Points: Kam Jones, 19.0 ppg
Rebounds: David Joplin, 5.3 rpg
Assists: Kam Jones, 5.8 apg
Villanova Stat Leaders
Points: Eric Dixon, 22.9 ppg
Rebounds: Wooga Poplar, 6.5 rpg
Assists: Jhamir Brickus, 5.2 apg
KenPom.com Rankings
Marquette: #26
Villanova: #55
Game Projection: Marquette has a 56% chance of victory, with a predicted score of 73-71.
Last Time Out: Marquette clamped down on Eric Dixon for the first 37 minutes, but gave up 27 points to Jordan Longino, and as a result had to hold Villanova at arm’s length for 40 minutes on the way to an 87-74 victory back on January 24th. Marquette did pop off a 12-2 run in the early going that put them up 17-10 and they were able to use that to their advantage the rest of the way.
Since Last We Met: The loss to Marquette ended up being the second of three straight as Villanova blew a 50-45 lead at home against Creighton with just under seven minutes left and let Steven Ashworth bank in a corner three (no, really) to beat them late. They snapped the skid by pulling away from DePaul in a 10 point road win, then poured on a 14-2 run late to beat Xavier by 12 at home. It seemed like Villanova miiiiiight just be turning a corner as they overcame handing out a 14-0 run to St. John’s in the second half and got a three from Tyler Perkins in the final 10 seconds to beat the Johnnies, 73-71.
And then they self-destructed, as much as one can self-destruct when you lost by 10 at home to Columbia in the second game of the season. A 10-0 second half run only pulled VU within 12 points of Providence in what turned into a 75-62 loss at the AMP. For an encore, with their NCAA tournament future getting dangerously close to in the balance after wasting their win over the Red Storm, Villanova built a 53-39 lead on Connecticut at the XL Center in Hartford….. and gave up a 13-2 run……. and let UConn end the game on a 14-1 run in the final four minutes. 66-59, VU takes a second straight loss. 27-6 in the final 11 minutes.
Tempo Free Fun: When Marquette and Villanova faced off the first time this season, the math seemed pretty straight forward for the Golden Eagles. Here’s how I wrote it up for the first meeting:
The Wildcats hit shots, they don’t turn it over much, and they’re pretty good at pulling in a second chance on the rare occurrence that they miss a shot. All put together: That’s the #12 most efficient offense in the country according to KenPom.com. In league play, they’re second best, trailing only UConn so far this season.
“But wait,” you say. “Didn’t you say that the KenPom algorithm has Marquette favored by 10 points in this game? Surely home court advantage isn’t enough to tip the scales that heavily if the Wildcats can score it so well.” An excellent point, well spotted.
Villanova stinks out loud on defense.
#180 overall in efficiency on KP right now. They effectively do not force turnovers, they will let you hit the open man for a three over and over again, and they’re not so hot at stopping you from getting to the line, either. In their nine Big East games, Villanova is allowing teams to shoot an effective field goal percentage of over 51% thanks to 37% long range shooting. They are dead last in the league in three-point attempt rate and assist rate on defense.
And so, with just six games transpiring between now and then, you would think that not terribly much about that has changed.
Except……
If you head to the ol’ BartTorvik.com data filtration system since MU and VU squared off, Villanova has been playing like the #52 team in the country. More to the point, they’ve been the #93 offense in the country for the last three weeks…….. and #40 on defense. Honestly, if they had figured out a way to maintain their offense while getting better on defense, they probably would have avoided the last two losses and Villanova might be looking at this game as another step on their way towards clawing out a spot in the NCAA tournament.
Instead, they came up short twice and now are probably going to stay on the outside looking in on the Field of 68. At the very least, this game marks an opportunity for Marquette to confirm that the Wildcats will not be an NCAA tournament team for the third straight season under Kyle Neptune’s direction.
Part of Villanova’s problems in the last six games? Eric Dixon’s been bad. He’s still leading the country in scoring and is one of just seven guys averaging 21 or more points per game this season. One of 13 at 20.0 or better, too. But in the last six, since the last time Marquette played Nova, Dixon is averaging just 17.3 points per game. The problem is, largely speaking, the fact that he’s only shooting 26% on three-pointers….. while still attempting 6.5 per game. The good news for the Wildcats is that means he’s taking less than his season average… the bad news is that his season average is only down to 7.1 attempts after this run, so he’s not down that much.
Marquette’s gameplan to defend Dixon worked for the most part in the first meeting, as he tacked on points late that ultimately didn’t mean anything to finish with 18 along with nine rebounds. What MU is going to have to do is find away to stop Jordan Longino. He didn’t go full NBA Jam HE’S ON FIRE in the first meeting: 8-for-19 with 2-for-6 from long range. But 9-for-12 from the charity stripe pushed him along to 27 points, and that more than made up for what MU was doing to clamp down Dixon.
The other part of the equation is that, uh, well, Marquette’s been kind of mid on defense over that same six game stretch. Torvik actually thinks that MU’s been worse than Nova overall, slotting in the Golden Eagles at #59 in the country. They’re #80 on offense and #60 on defense in that time. They’re not particularly bad, just mid, at anything…….. with the exception of defensive rebounding. MU’s offensive rebounding has been really great, #74 in this six game run…. but they’re handing all those second chances back on the other end, ranking #317 in defensive rebounding rate.
THE GOOD NEWS is that Villanova miiiiiiiight have completely abandoned offensive rebounding lately in order to hustle back and get stops. They’re one of the 20 worst offensive rebounding rate teams in the country lately, and usually I chalk “wow, they’re bad at this” on this one particular thing to “they’re not even trying” when it’s paired with pretty good defense.
Repeat the Dixon defense, trim some edges off of Longino, grab a few more rebounds than normal, value possession of the basketball — both keeping it and taking it away — as always, win game, get cheesesteak, leave Philly. Seems simple, right?
Marquette Last 10 Games: 6-4, and coming in with two straight wins.
Villanova Last 10 Games: 4-6, and coming in with two straight cartoonishly awful losses.
All Time Series: Villanova leads, 27-20.
Current Streak: The win in Milwaukee earlier this season moved the winning streak to eight straight against Villanova. That is an all-time series record for the Golden Eagles.
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