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The Villanova Wildcats’ run of utter dominance in Big 5 play ended on Tuesday night. The Palestra played host to a pretty monumental upset, all things considered, as the Penn Quakers knocked off the kings of Philly basketball 78-75.
December 5, 2012 was the last time that Villanova lost to a fellow Big 5 opponent. The Temple Owls knocked them off 76-61 at The Pavilion that night, but they went on a tear after that. They won 25 games in a row after that against their Philly peers, but all good things must come to an end. And they did on December 11, 2018, six years and six days after the run began.
The recipe for success for Penn came off a terrific night from the floor. The Quakers shot 51.1 percent from the field and 43.8 percent from 3-point land. That bested Villanova’s marks of 50 and 34.6 percent from those respective places. FT shooting was dismal on both sides, and for Villanova, they have to be unhappy with themselves for only making 66.7 percent of their shots from the line. especially since the differential was so minuscule.
AJ Brodeur and Antonio Woods combined for 38 of Penn’s 78 points on the night, splitting it down the middle with 16 apiece. Devon Goodman and Jake Silpe combined for 22, and like Woods and Brodeur, split their point total down the middle with 11 apiece. Michael Wang had 14 points of his own, so it was an extremely solid showing all around for everyone on Penn, and ‘Nova simply had no answer for them.
‘Nova had a strong showing points wise as well, but just kept digging themselves too deep. Collin Gillespie had 21 points, which led both sides, and Phil Booth had 18 points himself. Those efforts combined with 13 from Saddiq Bey and 10 from Eric Paschall could’ve been enough had they not fallen behind early and found themselves missing shots. They faced an uphill battle all night and just could not overcome it.
Villanova now has to refocus rather quickly because they have a meeting with the Kansas Jayhawks at Phog Allen coming up this Saturday.