Villanova 91 | Xavier 78 | Finneran Pavilion | Villanova, PA | March 7th, 2026
On the court, it was an expected result for Xavier on Saturday. However, off the court, it couldn’t have gotten much worse. We will discuss off the court later on, let’s talk about the game first.
Villanova came out hot and took the lead early, and they tried to let X back into the game multiple times. Duke Brennan was looking unstoppable and had a double-double in the 1st half. Thanks to Brennan’s performance and Nova’s stellar 3 point shooting, they led 44-32 at halftime.
In the 2nd, Xavier came out surging and cut the lead to 6, only for Villanova to knock down two consecutive threes and crush X’s rally. Xavier proceeded to cut it to 6 again, only for the exact same thing to happen. Villanova didn’t look back after this and cruised to an easy victory to close out the Big East regular season.
The absence of Tre Carroll was highly impactful, as someone was needed to step up and fill his place. No one did this well enough to will X to a road win. Villanova’s Brennan helped fill the role of Matt Hodge on top of covering his own workload.
Revisiting the Keys
Take Care of the Ball: Xavier actually won the turnover battle, with only 7 to Villanova’s 12. They forced a lot early and were able to hang tough for a bit due to this. Unfortunately, there are many more factors to a game than turnovers.
Making Shots: Here is where the Wildcats won themselves the game. They shot 56% from the field and 42% from 3, compared to 41% and 38% for Xavier. Nova simply hit more shots, and this is why they were able to dominate the scoreboard all game.
Ball Movement: Xavier won the assist battle as well, with 18 to Nova’s 24. They actually had some really nice plays and moved the ball well, you combo that with the turnovers and I’d argue they played a solid game, Villanova just wouldn’t miss.
Key Performances
Villanova
- Duke Brennan: 20 pts, 13 reb
- Tyler Perkins: 18 pts, 4 reb
- Devin Askew: 18 pts, 8 reb, 7 ast
Xavier
- Jovan Milicevic: 21 pts, 6 reb
- Isaiah Walker: 10 pts, 8 reb
- Malik Messina-Moore: 14 pts, 3 ast, 3 stl
Big East Tournament
Remember when I said off the court was rough yesterday for X too, this is why.
Since St. John’s had the 1 seed locked up for the Big East Tournament, X wanted the 8/9 seed. In order for this to happen, they wanted Georgetown to beat Providence, and they did. However, what that didn’t take into account for was that if Marquette beat UConn, they would overtake us. That is exactly what they did. Meaning, Xavier gets the 10 seed. They match up with Marquette in the 1st round at 6:30 Wednesday night on Peacock, and the winner gets to play a furious UConn team. That was the worst case scenario for the Muskies. A preview for Marquette will be coming soon! The Big East Tournament bracket is below.
Summary
The Muskies were missing Tre Carroll and still put up a decent fight. The preview had Nova winning by 16 and they did by 13, which was within the range of expectations. No one is too upset about this, and all of the X fans (On X/Twitter) are gearing up for an exciting Big East Tournament.
Leave a comment