RADNOR — Playing for Marquette, Wilson great Stevie Mitchell doesn’t get to play close to home too often. So when the opportunity arises, like Saturday’s showdown with Villanova at the Pavilion, the ticket requests can be daunting.
“I had 31 people on my ticket list,” Mitchell said. “I also had a bunch of family and friends who bought tickets.”
Fortunately for Mitchell, his teammates were willing to give up their ticket allotment to fill all of those requests.
“I’m really grateful for them,” Mitchell said. “They gave me a lot of tickets. I kept getting notifications, ‘Chase (Ross) sent you two tickets, TK (Tyler Kolek) sent you two tickets.’ I was really grateful for that.”
Mitchell’s family and friends got to see him score a career-high 19 points and help the Golden Eagles lock down the Wildcats in the second half to rally for a 68-66 victory, Marquette’s third win in a row over Villanova.
Mitchell has been known more for his defense than his offense. He came into the game averaging 6.3 points but shot 8-for-13, including 3-for-5 from 3-point range. He also had four steals and two assists before fouling out with eight seconds to go in the game.
“My teammates found me when I was open and my teammates and coaches instilled confidence in my shot because I work on it a lot, and me trusting myself as well,” Mitchell said. “It was definitely a team effort.”
Kam Jones added 14 points, but it was defense that enabled the Golden Eagles (11-4, 3-1 Big East) to erase a 53-46 Wildcats lead with a little over 16 minutes to play. Marquette’s defense was especially stingy after Chris Arcidiacono drilled a 3-pointer to tie the game with 3:42 to play in the game.
The Wildcats missed their last five shots and did not score again.
“They’re just a really well-coached team,” Villanova coach Kyle Neptune said of the Golden Eagles. “They take away your strengths and they play extremely hard. They make it hard to get to the rim and take away threes.”
Marquette took the lead on a dunk by Olivier-Maxence Prosper off a feed from Oso Ighodaro with 1:42 remaining. Yet the Wildcats still had a chance to tie it or win it when Jones missed the front end of a one-and-one with 15 seconds remaining.
After a timeout and a foul, Villanova set up one final play and found Dixon just left of the lane. The 6-8 redshirt junior put up a short jumper with the clock winding down but his shot was off the mark.
“We had a lot of reads out of that set and that was definitely one of the reads,” Neptune said.
The loss spoiled the starting debut of highly-touted freshman Cam Whitmore, who tallied a team-high 14 points, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out three assists. However, he only played eight minutes in the second half and scored just two points, and was on the bench for much of the final seven minutes, except for the last 26 seconds.
“We were trying to keep guys fresh,” Neptune said. “Only three guys played over 30 minutes. They play a lot of guys and we wanted to keep guys fresh.”
Eric Dixon and Caleb Daniels added 13 points each for the Wildcats but making shots in the second half was a problem. Villanova shot just 31 percent overall (9-for-29) and 25 percent from 3-point range (4-16). And many of those attempts came late in possessions as the Wildcats tried to beat the shot clock.
“They’re a really good defensive team,” Daniels said. “It was kind of tough to get in the paint because they help each other out and play together. We just got into a couple of late clock situations.”
The loss dropped Villanova to 7-7 overall and 1-2 in the Big East, the earliest the Wildcats have had two league losses since dropping the first three conference games in 2011-12. It’s also the first time Villanova had lost two conference regular-season games in a row since a three-game skid in 2019-20.
“We have to pump it up a little bit and take it to another level and we’ll be fine,” Daniels said.
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NOTES >> With Angelo Brizzi in the transfer portal and Justin Moore (Achilles) and Nnanna Njoku (foot) sidelined, the Wildcats were down to nine scholarship players against the Golden Eagles. … Villanova plays three of its next four games on the road. The Wildcats visit Georgetown Sunday, host Xavier, which knocked off previously unbeaten UConn earlier Saturday, and then are at DePaul (Jan. 10) and Butler (Jan. 13).
Source: Berkshire mont
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