Villanova loses big to Georgetown, 67-46

WASHINGTON - Villanova coach Jay Wright had to be feeling good when he arrived at the Verizon Center knowing he'd have Maalik Wayns, the Wildcats' leading scorer, available for Saturday's game against No. 9 Georgetown.

But while completing preparations in the locker room, Wright received bad news. JayVaughn Pinkston, who had averaged 15 points while Wayns sat for three games nursing a sprained left knee, went up for a dunk in early warm-ups, came down on a basketball sitting on the court, and rolled his left ankle.

So playing without two starters for the fourth straight contest, the Wildcats suffered their most one-sided loss of the season, a 67-46 Big East Conference decision to the Hoyas before a crowd of 19,277.

There was nothing in the box score that would indicate Pinkston and James Bell (sprained left ankle) could have fixed what was wrong. Villanova (11-17, 4-12 Big East) scored its fewest points of the season, shot a season-low 28 percent from the field, and endured its worst rebounding game (minus-17).

But given the injuries, it's a case where one has to wonder: What more can go wrong for 'Nova?

"I was in the locker room getting taped when I heard," Wayns said. "I just thought, 'Wow, he's playing great. I come back and he gets hurt.' That's just the kind of luck we've had this year. Things don't go our way, but we've got to keep a great attitude and keep fighting."

The 6-foot-7 Pinkston, a redshirt freshman, said he fell after stepping on the basketball but hurt only his ankle. After being treated, Pinkston joined the layup line but "it didn't happen" and told Wright he couldn't go.

He later persuaded Wright to put him in the game, but he came out after limping around for two minutes of the first half.

"I wanted to try to do something for my team," Pinkston said. "But coming into the second half, I really couldn't move."

As for Wayns, Wright said he decided after Friday's practice that Wayns would start. But the junior shot just 1 of 10, finishing with three points and four assists in 36 minutes.

"Usually the strength of my game is being explosive, going past people, but it wasn't there," he said. "I couldn't get any lift on my jump shot. But that's really it. I'm obviously not 100 percent but I'm not going to dwell on that. I'll just keep trying to get my knee better."

Wright agreed: "He's not 100 percent, but we needed him out there. He needs to play. He's cleared. He's fine. He just needs to get confidence in his knee."

The Wildcats, whose two previous losses came in overtime after they had blown big first-half leads, fell behind 25-8 with 5:30 left in the opening period. However, Dominic Cheek scored nine of his 19 points in the next four minutes to trim the deficit to four.