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No. 4 Villanova aims to continue success against St. John's (Feb 04, 2017)
Fourth-ranked Villanova will look for a clean sweep when it hosts St. John's in a Big East battle Saturday night.
The Wildcats (21-2, 8-2) have already won their first three games at the Wells Fargo Center with victories over Marquette, Providence and Virginia. They will look to complete the four-game sweep with another win over the Red Storm (11-13, 5-6).
Villanova still has home games at The Pavilion against Georgetown, Butler and Creighton, where it has won a program-best 47 in a row on campus.
In their last game, the Wildcats held off a furious rally to hold off Providence, 66-57 on Wednesday night at the Dunkin Donuts Center.
Point guard Jalen Brunson led the way with 21 points while preseason National Player of the Year candidate Josh Hart had 17 points and eight rebounds.
The win was the 118th in the career of seniors Hart, Kris Jenkins and Darryl Reynolds, setting a new record for most wins in program history by a single class. The previous mark of 117 was set by the Class of 2016 a season ago.
"I find myself repeating this everywhere in the conference we play: great environment and a great college basketball game," Villanova coach Jay Wright told reporters after the win at Providence. "Providence is tough and scrappy. We are not playing great basketball right now but we have found ways to fight and claw. That's a good thing, I guess. But we still have a lot of work to do."
As they have all season, the Wildcats made enough clutch plays down the stretch to come up with a win.
"Their matchup zone was very effective in the first half," Wright said of Providence. "Sometimes, though, you get yourself in trouble in the first half and can't recover. Fortunately, we did. Josh and Jalen just made some incredible plays. Thank God we've got good players."
St. John's is much improved since the beginning of the season as evidenced by its most recent game, an 86-72 victory over Marquette Wednesday night. Bashir Ahmed paced the Red Storm with a career-high 23 points.
In addition, Shamorie Ponds produced a stellar all-around effort with 18 points, seven rebounds, five assists and four steals. Marcus LoVett added 17 points, five assists and three steals.
St. John's coach Chris Mullin isn't concerned with offense, however.
"A lot of times we talk offense, sharing the ball and getting assists, but defense is teamwork too," Mullin told the program's athletic website. "It takes time to understand a guy's tendencies. We always want to pressure the ball, but you can't have five guys running around wild. I think we're getting more comfortable when and where to do that."
St. John's held Marquette to 37.1 percent shooting, which was a major key in the victory.
"We always talk about defense in practice, and I just felt like I had to step it up defensively," LoVett said. "If I could get steals or do anything to help my teammates, I was going to do it as much as I could. I tried to do whatever I could out there."
Villanova has won the last 13 games in the series with St. John's, dating to the 2010-11 season.
