No. 1 Villanova falls at Marquette
MILWAUKEE - There are nights in college basketball that just defy description, and Tuesday night became one of those nights for top-ranked Villanova against offensively potent Marquette.
MILWAUKEE - There are nights in college basketball that just defy description, and Tuesday night became one of those nights for top-ranked Villanova against offensively potent Marquette.
The Wildcats led by 15 at halftime and by 17 a minute into the second half. They still led by 13 points inside of six minutes to play. Then all of a sudden, they stopped scoring and the Golden Eagles kept right on going to come away with the upset of the Big East Conference season.
A 17-2 run gave Marquette its first lead of the game with 46.9 seconds to play. The Cats answered once but couldn't answer a second time and fell, 74-72, at the BMO Harris Bradley Center before a raucous crowd of 14,210, most of whom stormed the court when the clock hit all zeros.
Katin Reinhardt, a graduate transfer who scored 18 of his 19 points in the second half, hit the game-winning pair of free throws with 11.6 seconds to play, and Jalen Brunson missed a contested layup on Villanova's last possession.
It was hard to fathom. The Wildcats (19-2, 7-2 Big East) scored just four points in the final 6 minutes, 43 seconds, going 2 of 12 from the field and missing the front end of two one-and-ones. The Golden Eagles (14-6, 5-3), who were held to 34.5 percent shooting in the first half, improved to almost 70 percent accuracy in the second.
The Wildcats, who did a good job of getting the ball inside Marquette's 1-3-1 zone in the first half, stopped trying in the second half and settled for three-point shots. Of their 38 shots in the second half, 22 were from beyond the arc, and they made just four.
"We played great in the first half," 'Nova coach Jay Wright said. "In the second half, we couldn't stop them and we just settled for a lot of threes, didn't attack the basket, and they made every play down the stretch. Even down the stretch, we didn't get to the rim, we took threes."
Josh Hart, who sat out all but four minutes of the first half because of foul trouble but still wound up with 16 points, said his team's poor finish was because it "settled way too much" for three-pointers.
"That just shows how much we settled and how we didn't get into the lane and make our teammates better," he said. "We've got to keep playing, no matter how much we're up. We had to have a killer mind-set, we have to have heart for the full 40 minutes."
Brunson's steal and layup with 2:14 left broke a 41/2-minute drought and gave Villanova a 70-65 lead, but Reinhardt hit a 15-footer and a three-pointer to tie the score at 70 with 1:02 remaining.
Hart then missed a three-pointer and a foul on the rebound enabled Duane Wilson to give the Golden Eagles their first lead of the game on two free throws with 46.9 seconds left. Hart hit a follow-up shot to tie it again at the 35.2-second mark
Reinhardt then stepped up for the winning free throws, Brunson's drive kicked off the rim, and pandemonium broke out.
Mikal Bridges established a career high with 20 points to lead Villanova. Brunson added 19, 15 of which came in the first half. Kris Jenkins, the team's second-leading scorer, went 0 for 7 from the field, missing all six of his three-point tries, and scored just two points.
"I thought it was more our consistency, we've been talking about it," Wright said. "You've got to put a whole 40 minutes together. Sometimes you get on the road, a team gets hot, and if you don't finish that 40 minutes, that's going to get you. That's what got us."
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