On Tuesday night, Villanova traveled to Hartford, CT, for the second regular-season meeting with the University of Connecticut. Despite leading for 32:32, the Wildcats (15-12, 8-8 Big East) collapsed, losing to the Huskies (18-8, 10-5 Big East), 66-59, at the XL Center.

At one point in the second half, Villanova had a 14-point lead over UConn. However, the Wildcats only scored six points in the final 12 minutes of the game. The scoring drought allowed the Huskies to close out the game on a 27-6 run.

Villanova previously upset then-ranked No. 6 UConn, 68-66, at the Finneran Pavilion on Jan. 8. The Huskies, however, were down star freshman guard Liam McNeely at the time.

McNeely finished tonight’s game with a team-high 20 points for the Huskies.

Graduate guard Eric Dixon had a strong start to the game, scoring seven of Villanova’s first 16 points. Recently, Dixon has had slow starts to games, with a majority of his scoring coming in the second half. 

Dixon finished the game with 17 points and five rebounds. His 17 points moved him to fourth on the program’s all-time scoring list with 2,095 career points. 

Dixon is now averaging 22.9 points entering the final four games of the regular season.

In the first half, Villanova went on an early 12-2 run early, mostly due to a sequence of Wildcat defensive stops. The run allowed the Wildcats to maintain the lead for the entire first half despite allowing the Huskies to go on an 8-0 run.

Villanova’s first half was highlighted by one of senior guard Jordan Longino’s best halves of basketball. He scored nine-straight points inside of a 10-4 Villanova run to close out the half.

Longino finished the first half with 13 points, shooting an efficient 5-6 from the field and 2-3 from three. All 13 of his points came in the first half. 

The Wildcats finished the half shooting 50% on three-pointers and led the Huskies, 34-26.

It was a battle of runs in the second half. UConn managed to quickly shrink Villanova’s lead down to two points just two minutes into the half. The Wildcats responded with an 8-0 run across just 54 seconds. 

For Villanova, it was all senior Wooga Poplar in the second half. Poplar caught a giant run of his own to stretch Villanova’s lead, the largest of the game, at 14 points.

Poplar scored 11-straight points to go on an 11-2 run against UConn. He finished the game with 19 points, scoring 14 of those points in the second half. Poplar now has scored double digits in six consecutive games.

Despite Poplar’s second-half efforts, Villanova completely fell silent. The Wildcats had a scoring drought that lasted over six minutes, with only four players scoring Villanova’s second-half points.

The drought allowed UConn to go on a 27-6 run. Despite only having the lead for just 2:32, that was all the Huskies needed to grab a much-needed win after a crushing 69-68 overtime loss to Seton Hall on Feb. 15.

Villanova will now prepare for No. 16 Marquette (19-6, 10-4 Big East) on Friday, Feb. 21 (7 p.m., FS1). It is the Wildcats’ final game in the Wells Fargo Center this season.