In the first game, of a weekend doubleheader (basketball on Friday night, November 22nd, football on Saturday afternoon), so to speak, the Villanova Wildcats survived a scare from a tenacious Delaware Blue Hens team at the Pavilion to win 84-80. The teams went at each other in a seesaw battle in which the score was tied 8 times and the lead changed 11 times. In the first-half alone, which ended with Villanova leading 43-40, the score was tied 6 times and had 9 lead changes. The last tie score came with 3:02 left in the game on a three pointer by Delaware’s Davon Usher, who was the game’s leading scorer with 27 points. JayVaughn Pinkston, who played a very strong inside game for the victorious Wildcats, put Villanova back on top for good with a bucket off of a feed from Darrun Hilliard and then converted the ensuing foul shot to complete the old fashioned three point play with 2:39 left. Pinkston was Villanova’s high scorer with 26 points.
In the first half, the Blue Hens got exceptional play from Usher who scored 16 points (on 6 of 8 shooting), and Carl Baptiste who also shot 6 of 8, and pitched in with 13 points and 6 rebounds. The rest of the team shot 4 of 16 combined. Villanova was paced by Pinkston and James Bell with a dozen points apiece in the first-half. Both teams shot well in the first 20 minutes with Delaware shooting 50% (hitting 16 of 32 field goal attempts, including 4 of 8 three point attempts). The Wildcats hit 16 of 35 field goal attempts (45.7%), but only hit 3 of 13 from distance.
In the second-half, both teams cooled down a bit. Delaware hit 14 of 34 shots from the field (41.2%), including 7 of 18 three-point shots. In particular, Delaware got a huge boost from Jarvis Threatt, who scored 14 of his points in the second-half (Threatt hit only 1 of 10 in the opening half). The Wildcats hit 13 of 31 (41.9%) in the second-half, but once again shot poorly from long range hitting 2 of 12 three-point attempts.
Villanova, now 4-0 on the season, had 4 players score in double figures. In addition to Pinkston’s 26 points, Bell added 16, Hilliard chipped in 15, and Ryan Arcidiacono had 14. Daniel Ochefu was Villanova’s leading rebounder with 11, Hilliard had 9 boards, and Bell had 7. Overall, Villanova won the rebounding battle 45-32. Villanova’s total included 19 offensive boards. The Wildcats had 18 assists against 9 turnovers (Hilliard led the team with 6 assists). The Blue Hens, now 2-3 on the year, also had four players in double figures. Usher had a game high 27, Kyle Anderson had 17, Threatt 16 and Baptiste, who was held scoreless in the second-half, ended up with 13. Baptiste grabbed 8 boards to pace Delaware. Threatt had 8 assists and committed 5 turnovers. Delaware was without one of their top scorers, Devon Saddler for the game who was serving a suspension for team & school violations.
After playing four straight games at the Pavilion to open the season, Villanova will play its next three games in the ‘Battle 4 Atlantis’ tournament. The Wildcats will take on the University of Southern California on November 28 at 1pm in nationally televised game on AXS. Villanova’s next home game will be on December 5th when they entertain the Penn Quakers in a Big Five match-up at 8pm at the Pavilion. Delaware will next play November 25th against in-state rival Delaware State in Dover, Delaware.
Of note for Villanova fans: guard Dylan Ennis had the cast removed from his hand and has been cleared for all basketball activities. Coach Jay Wright said that he is still unsure if Ennis will be available for the Wildcats next game. “We’ll just have to see how he looks in practice,” Wright said.
[Photo credit: Christian Hafer]
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