Villanova hangs on to beat hapless Georgetown, 77-73

Villanova coach Kyle Neptune was having Fordham flashbacks. He’d seen this Primo Spears before. The Georgetown guard was at Duquesne last season and scored 20 points the first time Neptune saw him in what ended up being a one-point Fordham win.

Now, Spears was tormenting Villanova big man Eric Dixon. On consecutive possessions, Spears got Dixon on a switch and made Villanova pay with easy baskets.

Third time’s a charm? With the score tied at 71 Monday afternoon at Finneran Pavilion, Spears called for a screen and got his switch, but this time Dixon blocked Spears’ fadeaway attempt.

Down at the other end, Dixon converted a three-point play that gave the Wildcats the lead for good in a 77-73 win.

“To Eric’s credit, you are what you are at the end of the game,” Neptune said.

That refrain applies to the entire Villanova team, which avoided an embarrassing loss on its home floor to a Hoyas team that has now lost a record 28 consecutive Big East games.

The victory snapped a three-game Villanova losing streak. The Wildcats are now 9-10 overall and 3-5 in Big East play, two of those wins coming against Georgetown (5-14, 0-8).

Caleb Daniels led five Wildcats in double figures with 16 points. Brandon Slater had 15, Mark Armstrong tied a season high with 14, Cam Whitmore scored 13 points to go with four steals, and Dixon added 12.

“We’re a team that needs to grow and this was a big step for us,” Neptune said. “In the past, Villanova teams have been really well-balanced scoring-wise. We were that today.”

Villanova attempted 31 free throws to Georgetown’s 16. Uncharacteristically, Villanova, the top free-throw shooting team in the nation (84.3%), made just 23 of 31 (74%).

Georgetown was paced by Spears’ 19 points. Jordan Riley added a career-high 18 points.

Nervous energy? There was loads of it inside Finneran Pavilion. Rival Georgetown in the building, a historic Big East streak of 27 straight losses still going. The home team starting one of its own.

By Villanova basketball standards, it was at times downright quiet. During a stretch midway through the second half, the loudest crew in the building was the group of Hoyas fans near the rafters chanting “defense,” their team up six.

Villanova’s largest lead was 11 in the first half, but Riley kept the Hoyas in it. Georgetown used a 25-12 run over 9 minutes, 30 seconds to grab its first lead of the game 3:33 into the second half.

At one point in the second half, Georgetown was 13-for-18 from the field and had points on 14 of 19 possessions. Spears was a big part of that, as was Riley. The Hoyas led by six and Villanova, a 14-point favorite, went 12 minutes in the second half without having a lead.

It seemed fitting, the way things have been going, that Georgetown’s record-setting losing streak would end on Villanova’s campus.

With the help of Armstrong, Slater and Dixon, that didn’t happen.

Armstrong woke the building up with a few second-half baskets during a key 12-1 Villanova run, and Villanova’s veterans made the plays that mattered in the end.

» READ MORE: What should Villanova’s Justin Moore do? We asked NBA scouts.

With the score tied at 71, and after his big block, Dixon muscled Georgetown’s Bradley Ezewiro to the rim and scored a three-point play that gave Villanova a 74-71 lead with a minute to go.

The Hoyas didn’t back down. Spears made a pair of free throws that cut the deficit to one, and Georgetown got a stop at the other end on a Slater travel with 30 seconds to play.

With the shot clock unplugged, Spears drove to the left side and was cut off by Slater, who stole the ball, passed it to Whitmore, and watched as Whitmore threw down a one-handed slam that sealed the win.

“I wanted to make a play for my teammates and coaches,” Slater said. “Defensively, you want to be aggressive. I just wanted to execute.”

Angelo Brizzi, a redshirt freshman who left the Villanova program in December and entered the transfer portal, committed to play at Davidson.

Brizzi is enrolling for the spring semester and is expected to join the basketball team next season.

» READ MORE: Villanova’s Maddy Siegrist and Drexel’s Keishana Washington rank No. 1 and No. 2 in the nation in scoring. Here’s the reason why.

Villanova heads to Madison Square Garden on Friday to play St. John’s (7 p.m., FS1). The Red Storm (13-6, 3-5) knocked off then-No. 6 UConn on Sunday on the road. Villanova and St. John’s met in the conference opener for Villanova on Dec. 21. The Wildcats rolled in a 78-63 win.

After St. John’s, Villanova doesn’t play a game again until Jan. 29, when the Wildcats host Providence at the Wells Fargo Center.