Villanova falls to Providence, 55-52
Amid the euphoria that Villanova generated after back-to-back victories over top-five teams, the thought was that the Wildcats had overcome their offensive droughts, poor decision-making, and problems with defending the three-point arc.
But those issues cropped up again Sunday when shorthanded Providence took the fight to the Wildcats for the final 10 minutes and Bryce Cotton drilled the winning three-point basket with 2.2 seconds to play. The Friars left the Pavilion with a stunning 55-52 Big East victory.
The Wildcats (13-9, 4-5) appeared to be over the hump after wins over No. 5 Louisville and No. 3 Syracuse, the latter coming Jan. 26. A loss at Notre Dame wasn't too bad, but the Wildcats' second defeat of the season to the Friars (11-11, 3-7) was difficult to digest.
"There are so many little things that go into this that I definitely don't want our guys to panic," Villanova coach Jay Wright said. "I didn't want them to get too high after those two wins and I don't want them to get too low after these two. I want them to keep getting better and I think they will.
"They don't hit the shot [by Cotton] at the end and we get the ball back and win and we're sitting here all happy. But we still had that period in the second half where we kind of gave the game away. It's just something we've got to get better at."
Wright referred to a 10-minute stretch when the Wildcats missed 10 straight shots, some on wild drives to the basket. Providence came back with a 13-2 run to take a 52-43 lead with 4 minutes, 31 seconds to play on a basket by Cotton, the Big East's leading scorer, who had 18 points Sunday.
Villanova finally broke its drought at the 2:11 mark on James Bell's runner that led to a three-point play. That touched off a 9-0 run fueled by five consecutive turnovers by the Friars, and Bell tied it up on a pair of free throws with 42.9 seconds remaining.
Providence's Vincent Council then missed a jumper from the left elbow, but teammate Josh Fortune tipped the rebound back to Cotton with about nine seconds left. Cotton then knocked down the three, his fourth of the game.
Mouphtaou Yarou's heave from just inside half-court bounced off the rim at the buzzer.
Villanova, which was led by Darrun Hilliard with 17 points, shot 27.5 percent from the field and committed 18 turnovers.
The Friars, playing with just nine players, shot 66.7 percent (10 of 15) from three-point range, and 25.8 percent (8 of 31) from inside the arc. That's 19 threes allowed to Providence and to Notre Dame to five made by Villanova, including two on Sunday in 15 tries.
Fortune, a 6-foot-5 freshman who was averaging 2.3 points in the Big East, drained all five of his three-point shots and scored 15 points.
"We're not good enough to do that, where we don't execute and we lose three-point shooters, and still recover from it," Wright said. "It's a lot of little things. I know it doesn't look good but we're going to keep learning, keep getting better, and we'll see where we are at the end of this."
Contact Joe Juliano at jjuliano@phillynews.com or follow on Twitter @joejulesinq.
