In what Villanova head coach Jay Wright described as his team’s best defensive performance of the season, the 16th-ranked Wildcats held Creighton’s three-pronged perimeter attack of Ty-Shon Alexander, Mitch Ballock, and Marcus Zegarowski to 9-for-30 shooting from the field — including 1-for-10 from beyond the arc — and stayed within striking distance long enough to finally land the game-changing counter punches on offense down the stretch of a 64-59 win at the CHI Health Center Omaha on Tuesday night.
Creighton took a 52-44 lead with 8:21 to play after an old-fashioned 3-point play by sophomore forward Christian Bishop, but Villanova’s defense tightened its grip and held the Bluejays to just seven points on the final 13 possessions of the game, forcing nine misses on 11 shots, to close the game on a 20-7 run and earn a win in a game that they trailed for nearly 35 straight minutes.