Owls roll, ’Cats escape
RADNOR >> People will see the highlights from Villanova’s 66-59 overtime conquest of Creighton Wednesday night and see it was a free throw by Collin Gillespie that gave the 14thranked Wildcats the lead for good. A dunk follow from Dhamir CosbyRoundtree extended the lead to three points and a 3-pointer by Phil Booth pretty much settled the issue.
What they won’t see are the three hustle plays that led to each of those game-changing scores.
Gillespie doesn’t get to the foul line with 2:57 to play in the extra session if freshman Saddiq Bey doesn’t dive for a loose ball to keep the possession. Cosby-Roundtree followed with two huge offensive rebounds on Villanova’s next two possessions.
That’s what it took for the Wildcats
(19-4 overall, 10-0 Big East) to extend their winning streak to 11 games and become just the fifth team in Big East history to start league season with 10 straight wins and take a two-game lead on No. 10 Marquette, which they visit Saturday in Milwaukee.
“We were able to gut it out with some great effort plays by Saddiq, Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree and Collin Gillespie,” Wildcats coach Jay Wright said, “and Phil made some big shots.”
Bey’s dive for a loose ball after he missed a 3-pointer that would have snapped a 52-all deadlock triggered the whole sequence. He was able to tip the ball off of a Creighton player and that led to Gillespie getting fouled.
Gillespie made the first, but missed the second. Cosby-Roundtree was able to split two Creighton players for the ball and a putback that gave the Wildcats a 55-52 advantage.
After Creighton’s Kaleb Joseph missed a 3-pointer, Bey and CosbyRoundtree got back-to-back offensive boards to set up Booth’s 3-pointer that finally broke Creighton’s back. Bey rebounded a miss 3-pointer by Eric Paschall. That led to a shot by Booth that was off the mark.
Cosby-Roundtree pulled down the board and found Booth open on the left with beyond the 3-point line and this time the senior did not miss.
Creighton (13-10, 4-6) gave the Wildcats all they could handle even though it was missing two of its top three scorers. Leading scorer Ty-Shon Alexander (17 ppg) did not play because of an undisclosed injury suffered in practice Tuesday. Guard Marcus Zegarowski (10.9) is out indefinitely with a broken right hand suffered in Sunday’s win over Xavier.
“They’re a tough team to play against,” Booth said of the Bluejays. “They have so many guys who can shoot the ball that I was trying to stay connected defensively, stay locked in the whole game.”
It happened, even though Booth and Paschall struggled on the offensive end. Booth finished with 14 points. He had 10 of those in the second half and overtime. Paschall scored nine of his 15 points in the second half and OT.
With their two leading scorers struggling to find a rhythm, it was up to the young guys to come through and that’s where Bey and Gillespie came in. Bey scored a career-high 17 points, grabbed five rebounds and made two steals in addition to his hustle play in overtime. Gillespie finished with 13 points, tied a career-high with six assists and did not turn the ball over in nearly 40 minutes of action.
“Everybody was dialing it up and I was just feeding off that energy,” Bey said.
That energy led to the hustle plays in overtime that turned the tide in Villanova’s favor and allowed the Wildcats to join a very exclusive club. Connecticut and St. John’s were the only two schools in Big East history to start the league season with 10 straight wins.
Connecticut went 14-0 in 1995-96, 13-0 in 1994-95 and 11-0 in 1998-99. St. John’s was 14-0 in league play to begin the 1984-85 season.
“That’s pretty cool,” Wright said.