The Wildcats had a furious comeback to take down Butler on the road at Hinkle Fieldhouse.
Hinkle Magic wasn’t going to foil Villanova’s New Year’s plans.
Down by 13, with six minutes remaining, the Wildcats dug deep and rattled off a 22-1 run to come back and defeat Butler, 73-65, on Wednesday night.
Although the ‘Cats may have crumbled in similar situations in the past, they rallied on the road and held their ground in a big win to start 2025.
“Give a lot of credit to Butler, going against a Hall of Fame coach — national championship type of coach — had a great game plan, made it tough for us to score, but fortunately, our guys strung together some stops late and that was key to the win,” Kyle Neptune said. “I think we got nine — or something like that — straight stops, and that’s what got it done towards the end. … It’s the Big East. We knew it was going to be a dogfight on the road. A lot of credit to those guys, but really proud of our guys.”
After a closely contested first half that saw Butler leading 31-30 at the break, the Wildcats fell behind after a massive scoring surge by Jahmyl Telfort and a few Boden Kapke threes midway through the second half.
Villanova struggled to get into a groove offensively and Telfort’s aggressiveness resulted in a stretch where he scored seven consecutive points.
Telfort and Patrick McCaffery made back-to-back baskets to push the Bulldogs’ lead to 64-51, with 6:03 left.
“We were just talking about getting stops,” Neptune said of his message to the team once they were down by 13. “They were getting to the rim at will. A lot of credit goes to those guys — Telfort, Brooks — those guys are tough to stop. They do a great job of putting them in position to score and they do a great job of using their bodies to draw fouls. It was an adjustment for us, but luckily, down the stretch we started to string together some stops.”
The ‘Cats started to buckle down defensively, while Eric Dixon and Wooga Poplar got back-to-back baskets to spark the game-changing run.
Kris Parker came off the bench and had a four-point series, then Jordan Longino hit a three to cut it down to a one-possession game. Dixon followed up with the go-ahead stepback three-pointer to give the ‘Cats a 65-64 lead with 1:35 remaining.
They remained unrelenting on both ends of the court for the remainder of the game. Butler didn’t hit a single shot over the last six minutes and shot 0-for-9 during this stretch. The Bulldogs only scored one point off of a Finley Bizjack free throw, while the ‘Cats continued to sink foul shots to pad their lead and pull away.
Dixon led the ‘Cats with 28 points on 10-of-20 shooting, with five 3-pointers, four rebounds and three assists. Wooga Poplar had an 18-point, 15-rebound double-double. Jordan Longino chipped in 12 points, four boards, four assists and two steals. Jhamir Brickus had nine points, four assists and two blocks.
Kris Parker had a game-high +17 plus-minus rating.
Villanova outrebounded Butler, 43-30. Enoch Boakye was scoreless on two shot attempts, but had a big effort on the glass alongside Poplar and grabbed 14 rebounds.
“We’ve been talking about defending and rebounding since the beginning of the season,” Neptune said. “Enoch is a big body who can carve out space and get a lot of rebounds, and Wooga Poplar with his athleticism and anticipation he’s a big time rebounder as well.”
For Butler, Telfort racked up 25 points, 10 rebounds, six assists, two steals and a block. Pierre Brooks II finished with 10 points.
The Wildcats improve to 9-5 overall and 2-1 in Big East play. They will return home for their next game on Saturday, when they host DePaul for a 12 p.m. ET tip-off from Finneran Pavilion.
“One at at time. This was a great win for our program,” Neptune said. “We’ve got some older veterans, but we also have a lot of young guys that are finding their way and first time in those big-time moments. Proud of our guys, everyone gave us some great minutes. This is good, now, we got to move onto the next one.”
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