Did 'Nova learn from loss? Wright would rather not lose at all

MILWAUKEE - Jay Wright knows what some people were thinking, that Villanova might have been better off losing a game after rising to the No. 1 ranking so he would have his players' full attention in fixing some mistakes to help the Wildcats prepare for March.

But Wright doesn't subscribe to that sort of thinking. He said Friday that the Wildcats made a plethora of little mistakes including "defensive assignments" and "unintelligent fouls" Wednesday night against No. 5 Xavier that added up to a 90-83 loss on the road.

The Wildcats (24-4, 13-2 Big East) go back on the road for Saturday's game against Marquette (18-10, 7-8) at the BMO Harris Bradley Center. As attentive as the players were during film review on Thursday and what Wright termed a good practice Friday at the Pavilion, the coach would much rather point out the mistakes after a win than a loss.

"I really believe it's best to win and look at your mistakes," Wright said. "We try to do a good job of being honest with our guys even when we win. We can do that, and we want to do that.

"Now given the fact that we lost, we're making it a positive and learning from it. But we would much rather win and learn and be honest with each other: 'Hey, we won but we didn't play well.' I think you can do that. We never want to say to each other, 'Hey, it's good that we lost at this time of year.' We never want to do that, even though we know it could be positive."

Villanova gave up season highs for total points and points in the paint (44) against Xavier while allowing 50 percent shooting from the Musketeers, the second-highest mark by an opponent this season.

"Any time a team scores 90 points on you, there's going to be a lot of holes in the defense," guard Ryan Arcidiacono said. "It was just the little things we didn't do that we normally do on defense. We always try to protect the paint and they got easy paint baskets and easy dunks and and-ones. We just fouled people instead of making them earn it with our hands back."

Fouls were a major problem Wednesday night. Kris Jenkins had the hot hand offensively, scoring 22 points, but played just 19 minutes - only two in the second half - before fouling out.

But Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski knows Villanova, which he called "a terrific program and an outstanding team," has looked at the Xavier tape, made corrections and will be a tough out come Saturday.

"Villanova is always dangerous and we expect them to be supremely ready to play," he said. "That's who they are. That's why they've been able to be so consistent because they're ready to play every game. I think the greatest compliment I can give Villanova is that they don't beat themselves."

The Wildcats, whose most recent back-to-back losses came in the final two games of the 2012-13 season, must put Xavier behind them and focus on Marquette.

"This can't be anything for us about bouncing back," Wright said. "It can't be. It's got to be about Marquette because they are playing great right now. I'm sure it's going to be the same kind of [noisy] atmosphere out there. I think [our players] are still hurting a little bit. We all are. But we've got to get out of it."