Villanova holds off Providence, 76-74

A banner will be raised at some point inside Dunkin’ Donuts Center in Providence, R.I. It will celebrate a first for the Friars’ program: a Big East regular-season championship.

Villanova fans, for better or worse, will always add an asterisk to it.

Tuesday night’s 76-74 win at Finneran Pavilion made sure of that fate.

The reality of this third pandemic-affected season is that No. 9 Providence (24-4, 14-3 Big East) will have played three fewer conference games than second-place Villanova (22-7, 15-4), the result of three COVID-canceled games.

On the first day of March, the month when basketball seasons flounder or flourish, 11th-ranked Villanova showed which Big East team is king, notching its second win in two weeks over Providence.

Caleb Daniels led all scorers with 20 points for Villanova. Eric Dixon added 15.

It looked like Villanova, which led by 14 at the break, was heading toward a real statement win, but …

Ed Cooley’s teams don’t go down easy, especially not this one.

Villanova had a 46-35 lead five minutes into the second half. The Friars had gone cold after a hot shooting start. They had three guys in foul trouble. But a 13-2 run behind the long-range shooting of Noah Horchler and A.J. Reeves and two tough pull-ups by Jared Bynum tied the score at 48 with 11:37 to go.

Horchler had the big highlight of that sequence. He stuffed a Jermaine Samuels driving dunk attempt and then drilled a triple from the top of the key to cut it to four.

The under-8 media timeout came at a good time for the Wildcats, right after a Collin Gillespie three-pointer put them back ahead.

“They hit some big time shots. We hit some big time shots,” Villanova coach Jay Wright said. “It was a great Big East game.”

A Justin Moore three-pointer put Villanova up five, 62-57. At the other end, Reeves had an answer of his own.

Then Moore hit another. Bynum, who finished with 19 points, kept the party going with another three, making four consecutive possessions ending with a made triple. It was 65-63 Villanova with 3:35 to play.

As he has many times this season, Daniels gave Villanova a boost when it needed one. A floater after a tough drive put the Wildcats up four, 67-63.

Earlier, when Villanova needed some separation, he scored eight consecutive points, six from beyond the arc and two on a baseline drive.

“That’s just being confident and stepping up for my teammates,” Daniels said. “Guys were making plays the whole game, and those are the moments I have to step up and make plays.”

Said Wright: “He definitely changed the game in that spurt.”

Daniels later hit four key free throws to help seal the win.

“We’ve been in these,” Wright said. “We’ve been in these on the road, been in them at home. I think the Big East Tournament is going to be incredible because we know anybody in this league can beat anybody. It’s going to be really good basketball.”

The Friars entered Tuesday averaging 20.6 three-point shot attempts per game. They took 32 Tuesday, and made 15 of them.

Horchler and Reeves made five apiece.

Villanova shot 9 of 27 from beyond the arc.

The Wildcats wrap up the regular season Saturday in Indianapolis vs. Butler (13-17, 6-13) before Big East Tournament play begins next week in New York.

Villanova is locked in as the No. 2 seed and will play at 7 p.m. next Thursday.

Tuesday night was certainly not meaningless, despite Providence already winning the league.

Joe Lunardi’s latest Bracketology had Villanova slotted in as the No. 3 seed in the East (Philadelphia) Regional, with Providence as a No. 4.

A deep run at the Garden next week could bump Villanova up to a two-seed. Whether the Wildcats get placed in the East Regional and have a shot to play in Philadelphia … find out next Sunday.