Villanova new coach Kyle Neptune and his Wildcats grew up last night during a 73-71 to natonally ranked Michigan State in the rowdy Breslin Center at East Lansing.
The Cats, which lost to Temple and struggled against Delaware State, didn’t win, but the culture of the program was on full display as Villanova rallied from a 16 point deficit in the final minutes and actually had a chance to win in the fiinal seconds
Redshirt junior center Eric Dixon had the best game of his career, scoring 24 points and grabbing 12 rebounds. He had a long three for the game winner on the final possession, but his contested shot missed badly.
“We ran a play to score,” Neptune said of the final possession. “We had a lot of different options and had to take what the defense gave us We ended up with a three, but we would have taken an easy two as wel,, they just played really good defense.”
The Cats (2-2) were far from perfect, shooting just 8 for 29 from the three while allowing the Spartans (3-1) to shoot 13 for 25 from beyond the arc.
“The speed that they play with, it’s really hard to take away threes,” Neptune said.
To the Cats’ credit, they made five straight shots in the final 3:30 to cut the lead from 10 to one before Tyrson Walker, the Northeastern transfer who finished with 22 points on 9 fpr 14. made one of two free throw with 17 seconds to increase the lead to two and played character pressure defense on Sparty’s three guard offense down the stretch after giving up wide open threes for the first 35 minutes. You have to like the way the Cats are shooting from the line, They shot 15 for 19 on the road. Senior Bradon Slater, who had 17, has been particularly effective. He is perfect from the line, making 22 of 22 attempts for the season.
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