Marquette @ Villanova preview

Last Meeting ( Feb 9, 2019 ) Villanova 65, Marquette 66

The defending national champions are learning how to battle adversity -- and Wednesday might be their toughest challenge yet. Riding a three-game losing streak, Villanova hosts No. 9 Marquette with the Wildcats in desperate need of a Big East victory.

Back on Feb. 9, the Wildcats visited the Golden Eagles and suffered a 66-65 loss as dynamic guard Markus Howard led Marquette with 38 points. Villanova bounced back with a home win over Providence, but a tight loss at St. John's was followed by back-to-back 12-point defeats to Georgetown and Xavier, leaving Wildcats coach Jay Wright to assess a season that is beginning to slip away. “Every season’s different,” he said after the Xavier defeat. “You have to deal with everything. We’ve had a lot of good things to deal with. I’ve been here before, these guys haven’t. And a lot of these guys are new. So it’s a good learning process for us." Marquette can clinch at least a share of the regular-season league title and the No. 1 seed in the Big East tournament with a win.

TV: 9 p.m. ET, Fox Sports 1

ABOUT MARQUETTE (23-4, 12-2 Big East): The Golden Eagles turned the win versus Villanova into the start of a four-game winning streak in which the last three victories have come by double figures. In Saturday's 18-point victory at Providence, Sam Hauser and Sacar Anim scored 18 points apiece while Howard
battled through a groin pull to score 14 points on 2-of-12 shooting. If Howard, the Big East's leading scorer at 25.3 points per game, is unable to be effective against Villanova, the team could once again rely on Hauser, who was 7-of-10 from the field against Providence and grabbed 13 rebounds for his fifth double-double of the season.

ABOUT VILLANOVA (20-8, 11-4): The Wildcats continued to struggle with their shooting against Xavier, as they shot under 34 percent from the field and just 10-of-36 from 3-point range, not to mention only four trips to the foul line. Phil Booth, who averages a team-high 18.4 points, was 6-of-18 from the field and 2-of-9 from beyond the arc and, over the last three games, he is 5-of-25 from 3-point range. The team needs more help from its bench as well, as the Villanova reserves contributed only seven points on 3-of-13 shooting in 49 combined minutes against the Musketeers.

TIP-INS

1. Starting with the Marquette game earlier this month, Villanova G Collin Gillespie is 6-of-31 from 3-point range in the last five games.

2. Marquette F Joey Hauser (10.0 points per game) had 15 points against Providence after failing to reach double figures in his previous five games.

3. Anim averages 8.6 points on 45.8 percent shooting, but those numbers increase to 13.2 points on 64.7 percent shooting in his last six games.

PREDICTION: Villanova 74, Marquette 70