FINAL: Villanova 103, Penn 65
And that’s pretty much that. There’s little the ‘Cats did wrong in this game, as they displayed exactly the sort of balance that explains why they’re ranked No. 5/6 in the country. No one scored more than 16 points — and freshman Maalik Wayns was the one who did score a team-high 16 — while a total of six players scored in double figures. Penn actually led 5-4 early, but ‘Nova scored the next 16 points and used a relentless half-court trap to build a 55-25 lead at the break. The Wildcats were 11-for-21 from the arc (52.4 percent) and had a 45-27 rebounding edge. And Antonio Pena had a double-double (12 points, 10 assists). That makes 30 in a row at the Ski Lodge and 19 of 20 against the Big 5 for the Main Liners. Yikes.
Penn? Well, on the plus-side, senior Darren Smith scored 21, so perhaps he’s really read to roll after a two-year injury absence. But Tyler Bernardini played just 15 minutes, took just three shots and didn’t score. Not good. The Quakers also made just 9 of 32 3-pointers (28.1 percent). This was their worst regular season loss to the ‘Cats — the infamous 90-47 beating in a regional final of the 1971 NCAA tournament was worse, at least according to the final point differential — and they’ve now lost 10 straight Big 5 games.
Penn (0-2) plays Delware at home on Saturday in the first Palestra game of the year. ‘Nova (2-0) heads to San Juan, Puerto Rico, for the O’Reilly Auto Parts Puerto Rico Classic, where it will play George Mason on Thursday afternoon.
Posted:
Monday, November 16th, 2009 at 10:19 pm by dom
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