Villanova men open Big East play with 79-67 win over Seton Hall for its fifth straight victory

Villanova passed its first Big East test of the season in front of a lively exam-week crowd Tuesday night at the Finneran Pavilion with a 79-67 defeat of Seton Hall. The struggling Pirates (5-7, 0-1 Big East) are not a test with end-of-semester difficulty, but the Wildcats (8-4, 1-0) breezed to their fifth-straight victory.

Graduate forward Eric Dixon, who entered Tuesday night as the nation’s leading scorer, led the Wildcats with 25 points. Sophomore guard Tyler Perkins scored a season-high 17 off the bench. Seton Hall sophomore guard Isaiah Coleman led the Pirates with 22 points and nine rebounds.

In 25 minutes, Perkins scored 17 on 6-of-7 shooting from three. It was his best offensive performance since transferring from Penn in the offseason.

» READ MORE: Villanova aims to keep building around Eric Dixon as it opens its Big East schedule

“I’m just focused on defending and rebounding, and everything else will take care of itself,” Perkins said.

Perkins had five games with 20 or more points last season, including a 22-point performance in Penn’s 76-72 win over Villanova last year.

“He’s a guy that brought that defense and rebounding mentality,” Villanova senior guard Jordan Longino said. “We played him last year over at Penn… I think everybody in this room knows. [Perkins] is a guy that’s a Villanova guy. He plays with that mentality every night. Obviously he’s been knocking down shots, but in his mind he’s coming out here to defend and rebound.”

Villanova’s offensive success has been dependent on Dixon this season. He was inefficient on Tuesday, shooting 44% from the field. Perkins and Longino, who also notched a season-high 15 points, provided support for Villanova’s offense.

“If we defend and rebound, we’ve got guys who can make shots,” Villanova coach Kyle Neptune said. “We’ve got guys that can score.”

The last time the Wildcats won five in a row was a December stretch in 2022, Neptune’s first season in charge.

Over the last five games, Villanova’s defense held opponents to an average of 62.4 points, well below the 69.3 points allowed per game mark Villanova posted in the season’s first seven games.

» READ MORE: Villanova basketball: What’s working, what’s not, and the path to the dance as Wildcats brace for Big East play

Even as the ‘Cats string together wins, they should be wary of what lies ahead. In 2022, the Wildcats snapped their five-game win streak with a 74-66 loss at UConn, the first of five conference losses in a six-game span. Their next six games are against conference foes ranked in the top 77 of the NET rankings. The ‘Cats will visit Creighton, Butler, St. John’s, and Xavier in that stretch.

“I think we take it one day at a time,” Longino said. “Tomorrow we get an off day and [we] watch film, then the next day we’re going to practice and watching scout film. Nothing changes in our mindset. We obviously know what Creighton has. We know who they are. We take every day the same way. [We’re] just trying to get better.”

Villanova senior guard Wooga Poplar and Coleman were both assessed technicals after a late game dust-up. Tempers flared after Seton Hall’s Dylan Addae-Wusu fouled Villanova redshirt freshman guard Kris Parker on a drive to the basket while the ‘Cats led, 78-64, with six seconds remaining.

Seton Hall applied full-court pressure until the buzzer, with three Pirates trapping Jhamir Brickus in the corner as the horn sounded. The physicality from Seton Hall is something the Wildcats need to get used to during Big East play.

“Anybody playing in the Big East is going to come with physicality,” Longino said. “For us, I think we try to go out and match that. We talk about it every day in practice, just being physical, defending, rebounding… I think tonight that’s something we accomplished.”

Villanova travels to Omaha, Neb. to face Big East foe Creighton (7-4) on Saturday (FS1, 4 p.m.). The Bluejays are without junior guard Pop Isaacs, who had hip surgery that will sideline him for the rest of the season. The Texas Tech transfer averaged 16.3 points over eight appearances.

Creighton does have seven-foot-one senior center Ryan Kalkbrenner, a three-time Big East defensive player of the year who has a 17.4 points per game average in 10 games.