'Nova falls to Senegal again

Maalik Wayns scored 15 points but Villanova lost to Senegal's Senior National Team for the second day in a row, 79-65, outside of Paris on Thursday afternoon.

Wayns added nine rebounds and junior Mouphtaou Yarou had nine points and 11 rebounds while battling foul problems.

The Wildcats led, 13-8, but Senegal took a 44-33 lead at the half.

"That was as unique as an experience as you can have in this game," Villanova coach Jay Wright said about the physical game. "It was like being in a street fight in someone else's neighborhood. It presented a great challenge for us that I thought our players handled well. Having Mouph in early foul trouble certainly didn't help us. It forced us to play a lot of the young guys and we had some mistakes at key points.

"I thought on the whole, though, the young guys did a good job. Markus Kennedy stepped in and gave us some quality minutes and so did Darrun [Hilliard] and JayVaughn [Pinkston]. It was a great learning experience. That's a very seasoned international team that knows how it has to play to be effective. There's a lot we can learn from this

"That team was athletic and very long and their experience was very obvious. They knew they were playing against a young team. But that kind of challenge was what we wanted from this trip and these type games can only help our development. We're looking forward to moving on to Amsterdam and having another game on Friday."