PHILADELPHIA—Villanova’s 61-55 non-league victory over Connecticut Saturday brought back memories of previous Big East battles and created coming attractions of an old rivalry when the Huskies re-join the conference next year after spending six years in the American.
“I kind of wish they weren’t coming,’’ Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “We don’t need more games like this. I know it’s going to be good for the league. Danny Hurley is rebuilding this thing and they’re going to be hard to reckon with in the future.’’
When Wright started hearing the chants of “UConn, UConn, UConn” in the second half of a close game coming from the Huskies’ fans who made the road trip down the turnpike to Wells Fargo Center, it all came back to him.
“I forgot about that,’’ Wright said. “They always travel well.’
The Huskies owned this league under Jim Calhoun, winning three national championships. But Villanova has been the top Cat here ever since the Big East reinvented itself as an all-basketball league in 2013, winning two national championships in 2016 and 2018.
Villanova had dominated UConn in two previous non-conference meetings at Hartford and the Garden, but the 14th-ranked Cats (14-3) had to scramble to win this one, with junior forward Jermaine Samuels scoring 14 of his 19 points in the second half and made a decisive three point play to give Nova, which had trailed by six in the final five minutes, the lead for good at 52-51 with 2:51 to play, then buried a three with 31 seconds remaining to send the Cats up four.
The shots brought back memories of the huge three Samuels made last month with 19 seconds to play as the Cats upset then top-ranked Kansas, 57-56, here last month.
“That’s just my teammates having confidence in me,’’ Samuels said.
Villanova junior point guard Collin Gillespie, who entered the game averaging 15.1 points per game, was shut out in the first half, but came back to score all 12 of his points in the second half for the Cats, who also got upper class play from 6-9 freshman Jeremiah Robinson-Earl in the final possessions to make up for the fact the Cats’ sophomore forward, leading scorer and biggest three point threat Saddiq Bey, who made eight threes last weekend in a big win over Georgetown, scored nine points in the first seven minutes but then went scoreless over the final 33.
The biggest difference in the game was the fact the Cats had 11 threes as opposed to Connecticut (10-7), which hurt Nova inside but made just 2 of 15 threes. The Huskies threw a scare into the Cats, scoring on 10 straight possessions to take a 50-44 lead and were still in the game after Chris Vital cut the Nova lead to 57-55 on a driving layup with 24 seconds to play before Robinson-Earl drilled four straight free throws and had a block and key defensive rebound to thwart UConn’s final gasp.
The Cats are supposed to be a year away, but they keep finding ways to win these close games. The Huskies seem poised to make a comeback once they return to their own haunts.
“People better get us now,’’ Hurley warned. “It’s coming.”
