On Wednesday, Dec. 31, Villanova men’s basketball closed out the calendar year with a 71-66 comeback victory over DePaul.
The victory extends the Wildcats’ (11-2, 2-0 Big East) win streak to four games, and is the first time this season that they have won a game after trailing at the half. DePaul (8-6, 0-3) led by as much as 10 points in the second half, but a 9-0 scoring run allowed Villanova to take its first lead of the game with six minutes remaining.
“Every time you win in this league, it’s important—no matter how you win,” Villanova head coach Kevin Willard said. “So finding ways to win is what matters.”
Villanova finished the game going 34.5% from the field and 43.5% from beyond the arc.
Redshirt sophomore guard Bryce Lindsay and junior guard Tyler Perkins led the Wildcats in scoring with 19 each. Perkins finished just two points shy of his season-best 21 points. Lindsay was a crucial part of Villanova’s second-half comeback, dropping in back-to-back three pointers.
“I changed my play style [in the second half],” Lindsay said. “In games, I can be too casual sometimes, so I had to run harder to get more shots.”
Senior guard C.J. Gunn led the Blue Demons with 15 points.
In all of Villanova and DePaul’s prior meetings since 2010, the Wildcats had won 26 out of 27 matchups. DePaul’s singular win came in 2022, when the Blue Demons beat the Wildcats, 75-65. The last time DePaul beat Villanova was in 2007.
In the game’s opening minutes, Villanova took a 12-6 lead. However, it was quickly met with a 9-0 DePaul scoring run. The Blue Demons are the only team in the Big East that has 3-plus returning starters, consisting of Gunn, junior guard Layden Blocker, and senior forward N.J. Benson.
Gunn rallied the Blue Demons’ offense with 13 points, four rebounds, and two assists in the first half alone. Foul trouble limited Gunn’s effectiveness later in the contest. He drew his fourth foul two minutes into the second half and eventually fouled out in the final minute of the game.
Villanova allowed a DePaul team, which was ranked 187th in offensive efficiency, to shoot 46.2% on first-half field goals.
Though having opportunities to score, the Wildcats struggled to convert offensive chances in the first half, going only 9-for-33 (27%) on field goal attempts, 3-for-13 (23%) on three-pointers, and 7-for-13 (54%) at the free-throw line. Despite hauling in 10 first-half offensive rebounds, the Wildcats only managed to total two second-chance points.
The Wildcats finally found first-half momentum after Lindsay ended the Wildcats’ four-plus-minute scoring drought, cutting DePaul’s lead to only 32-28 at the end of the first half.
“I thought we did a good job of battling and still playing hard, while not playing well,” Willard said. “When you have a young team, it can be frustrating when you’re not playing well offensively, and it affects your defense, but I thought we hung in there as close as we could while not playing overly well offensively.”
This season, the Wildcats have trailed only at the half twice. Both times account for the Wildcats’ losses this season against nationally ranked teams, Brigham Young University and the University of Michigan.
DePaul kept its momentum into the second half, while Villanova still struggled to put together consistent scoring possessions. Villanova was able to get within five points of the Blue Demons. However, DePaul went on a scoring run to take a 10-point lead, its largest of the game.
Then, the Wildcats began to find their rhythm, chipping away at DePaul’s lead after Lindsay, Perkins and Askew sank three consecutive three-point shots.
Perkins’s three-pointer tied the game for the first time since the five-minute mark of the first half, and Askew’s three-point shot accounted for the second lead change of the game. It gave the Wildcats their first lead of the game since it was 12-11.
In the game’s remaining minutes, the Wildcats maintained control with Gunn fouling out of the game for the Blue Demons, alongside senior forward Kaleb Banks.
The Wildcats will now travel to Indianapolis on Saturday, Jan. 3, to play Butler (10-4, 1-2) at noon (TNT/truTV). Villanova is riding a three-game win streak against the Bulldogs.
