A look at the Huskies ahead of Saturday's game.

A rare luxury in this COVID-impacted season, Villanova looked to take advantage of a week of uninterrupted practice.

Notes and quotes from Jay Wright's Friday press availability. Today's recap of the presser is a little light, but we'll have more from Wright in our game preview and will also be putting out another article with quotes from Wright and a couple of the players on another theme that emerged at today's press availability.

On a balanced offensive attack for Villanova...

“It’s something that we always try to do. It doesn’t work all the time. We want to develop our players to make them all complete players and we want them to trust each other and trust everybody’s that’s on the floor. In games that we’ve played well, we have had that balance. Sometimes that balance is one guy having a big game the other guy not and then it changes the next game. That balance is important to us.”

A Trey Patterson update...

“We’re really impressed with him. His maturity, his basketball IQ, his physicality for a high school player. We’re very impressed and we’re very optimistic about him being a really good player in this program.”

On the quality of this year's Big East and conference's NCAA tournament chances...

“I think if all of these teams in the Big East were practicing since June, I think this would be one of our best years. Some teams have really been impacted. I still think we got five or six teams in the hunt here and I think we could be in the end worthy of five or six.”

Germantown Academy product and 2021 Villanova commit Jordan Longino led his team to a one-point win Tuesday night with a 31-point outburst. He also moved into second place on Germantown Academy's all-time scoring list.

Longino is known as a tough shotmaker with excellent range who should be dynamic in the Villanova offense.

A look at the Bluejays ahead of Saturday's matchup.

Jay Wright's press conference remained largely focused on the Creighton game, so much of it will be covered in our game preview later today. But still wanted to share whatever odds and ends were left over.

On Creighton having fans in attendance...

"It will be interesting to play in front of fans. I never thought I’d be excited about playing in front of Creighton fans but it will be nice to have fans there."

"Playing out there is always a unique experience. They have such a great fan base and their style of play fits into that, when they get that crowd going. They just do a great job of game-day atmosphere.”

“We decided not to make a big deal of it. When you make that decision, you are interested to see how that plays out when you get in front of a crowd."

On Collin Gillespie and Marcus Zegarowski...

“You have two of the best in the country and guys that have gone at each other for a couple years now, they know each other so well. I know Collin has great respect for Marcus and I think fans are gonna see two of the smartest and most skilled point guards in the country.”

On the offense clicking/being a bit ahead of the defense...

“I think we are clicking offensively, that comes with time, we’ve been back for a while. I also think we learned some things against St. John’s that helped us. I’m a little disappointed that our defense isn’t at the same pace in terms of clicking. You gotta be more connected defensively than you do offensively. I feel like we’re really connected offensively but we’re not connected defensively yet the way we should be.”

Two things that stood out in Wednesday's big win.

We got a surprise late in the second half of Wednesday's win over Marquette.

Quite a performance from the Cats Wednesday night.

A look at the Golden Eagles ahead of Wednesday night's matchup.

Notes and quotes from Jay Wright's Tuesday press conference.

On handling the intensity and competition in the Big East and dealing with getting every team's best shot each night...

“I don’t feel like we’re handling that well this year. We’ve had a lot of bad starts. The St. John’s game we started well and it was the reverse. I just don’t think we’ve had that consistency of understanding the level we have to play at every night. I don’t feel like we’re understanding the intensity with which teams come at us as well this year.”

We’re struggling this year playing Villanova basketball consistently. On the defensive end, rebounding, taking care of the basketball and some nights we’re really good, some nights we’re not. Different opponents have affected us different ways. Normally it doesn’t matter the opponent, we have a consistency. I just feel like we haven’t had that this year.”

However, Wright credited his team for being able to overcome that inconsistency and struggle approaching each game the way they need to...

“I think it says we’ve got really good leadership, we’ve got talented players."

The latest on Bryan Antoine...

“He’s getting better every day. He’s playing on an experienced team. He’s like a freshman, he’s learning our stuff. We’re happy with him. We’re actually really proud of how he’s handled all these injuries and setbacks. I can’t tell you honestly when you’ll see him on the floor.”

On Eric Dixon...

“He’s getting there. If we would have practiced in the summer and the fall this dude I think would be a killer right now. But we’re trying to win games and we’re trying to hang in games and he’s still behind some. He has been incredible at fighting through all of it and I need to get him in there more and I do think he’s going in a great direction.”

Wright noted that the quarantine/pause had a particularly tough impact on Antoine and Dixon, Antoine because what he really needs right now is reps and Dixon for the same reason and also because the layoff affected his conditioning a bit. As we're seeing with some of the one-and-done reliant teams, development and cohesiveness are hard to come by this season and while Villanova has been fortunate to be a relatively experienced team and so has been able to navigate some of those challenges better, no one is escaping the circumstances unscathed and Antoine and Dixon in particular are players who have been negatively affected by the disrupted schedules and loss of practice time.

What stood out from Sunday's win.

Nova gets back in the win column with a victory over Georgetown on Sunday.

Some extra insight on Georgetown ahead of Sunday's game.

A look at the Hoyas as the 'Cats look to bounce back from Wednesday's loss to St. John's.

Some notes and quotes from Jay Wright's press availability on Saturday.

Leftover St. John's stuff...

“We have to make adjustments in our press offense. A lot of little things that we did not execute well against St. John’s. This year is more so than ever you have certain areas that you’re not really prepared for. We practiced for two days against the press but you can’t simulate their quickness, their execution, their physicality, you just can’t simulate that. You have to get into a game and be able to adjust and that’s what we didn’t do a good job of. We were trying to do what we wanted to, they were just better at their press than we were at our press offense.”

“I think our defense was sub-par. It wasn’t horrible. I think our transition defense was very poor. I think our turnovers put us in a really difficult situation defensively. A lot of our turnovers led to impossible transition situations defensively. And then we did have some opportunities in transition defense that we didn’t execute. That all kind of compounded our defensive problems.”

“We've never been one of those to flush the game away, burn the tape. We just feel like each game we can learn from. When you win you can go back and look at things, and you have to, you have to just keep trying to get better every game. And when you lose like that, it’s not just that there’s a lot to learn from, it’s kind of pounded into you that these issues defensively, these issues taking care of the ball offensively, playing against physicality, it really accentuates how important those areas are.”

On the response from the team in practice the last few days...

“Great response. I think you hear them say that when we win (needing to get back to work, get better). It’s true. We want to just keep getting better every night and learning from each game. Because it doesn’t matter where you are at this point in the season, even if you’re really good at this point in the season, it doesn’t matter. Everyone’s gonna keep getting better and if you stop improving you’re going to get caught along the way. When you get beat like this, it just accentuates how important it is to get better.”

On the report that many high school and college teams around the Philadelphia area will be practicing at 5:30 a.m. on Monday in honor of coach Chaney....

“I didn’t know about that, it’s actually a great idea. I might do that.”

We'll have more quotes from Wright regarding more Georgetown-specific stuff in our game preview later this afternoon.

Things went poorly on Wednesday night and two concerns emerged for the Wildcats.

As we reported earlier, Villanova was looking for a replacement game for Sunday's postponed matchup against Xavier and that it would start with potential Big East opponents. It appears the Wildcats have found a conference opponent. Jon Rothstein is reporting that Villanova will host Georgetown on Sunday at 2:30. There hasn't been an official announcement from the school at this point, but the report matches what we heard from Jay Wright and playing Georgetown would help the Cats catch up on Big East games. We'll await official word from the school, but I think it's safe to assume Nova-Georgetown will be the matchup on Sunday.

A night to forget in Queens.

A look at St. John's ahead of Wednesday night's matchup.

As we reported in the previous thread, Sunday's Villanova-Xavier game has been postponed. Jay Wright confirmed the Wildcats will actively look to find a replacement opponent for this weekend.

Obviously there is a lot of chatter about a Villanova-Gonzaga matchup as the Zags are also looking for an opponent this weekend. There has been contact between the programs, but Gonzaga will have to get in line if it hopes to pay the Wildcats. Villanova's first priority will be trying to play a Big East game, and it will explore every opportunity to do so before turning to a non-conference opponent. "We gotta start with a possible Big East game," Wright said. "If we can’t get a Big East game, then non-conference. We definitely, of all teams, have a responsibility to the Big East that we gotta play a Big East game. We screwed up enough people’s games, so that’s our first priority.”

Wright did confirm that he has talked with Gonzaga coach Mark Few and that there is mutual interest in a game. "I told him our priority has to be the Big East first," Wright said. "If we can get a Big East game we gotta play the Big East game, we owe it to the Big East." But if there is no opportunity to play a Big East opponent, the programs may try to put something together. "I said to him 'we’ll stay in touch. If we can’t get a Big East game, we can talk about it'.”

If I had to guess right now who Villanova will play this weekend, I'd say it would be a Big East team. But with all the logistics involved in these on-the-fly schedulings and the possibility that any plan can be disrupted, and if no conference opponent can be arranged it is very possible we get Villanvoa-Gonzaga.

Tuesday afternoon it was announced that Sunday's game between Villanova and Xavier has been postponed due to COVID issues with the Musketeers program. No makeup date has been announced. There will be a lot of chatter about a replacement game, with the name Gonzaga coming up a lot. Jay Wright is scheduled to meet with reporters virtually in about an hour, so we'll have an update about the schedule for this weekend.

On Monday night, the conference and school announced tweaks to next week's schedule. The game against DePaul on February 9 has been postponed. Instead, Villanova will host Marquette on February 10. That game is scheduled for a 9 p.m. tip and will be broadcast on FS1. That is a makeup of the scheduled Jan. 8 meeting between Marquette and Nova that was postponed while the Wildcats were on pause.