Put away your dancing shoes.

Playing for its NCAA Tournament life Thursday night against Marquette, Villanova's valiant effort came up just short in a 71-65 overtime loss.

“Give Marquette a lot of credit," Kyle Neptune said. "They played extremely hard, I thought they had a great game plan, they made some really tough shots when they had to, got some tough stops when they had to, attacked the offensive glass, made it hard for us defensively so give them a lot of credit. On our side, I’m really proud of the way our guys just kept fighting, get it to overtime, in overtime kept fighting til the very end. So proud of our guys effort.”

'Nova avoided a slow start this time around, scoring first and holding a lead for much of a first half in which neither team held a lead of more than two possessions. By the time the dust settled on the back-and-forth period, 'Nova held a one-point lead.

While the first-half performance left Villanova in a decent enough position, it also felt like there was a missed opportunity for the 'Cats. That's because Marquette was shooting under 30% for much of the half, but as we noted, Villanova was not able to take a lead larger than four. While games are rarely won in the first half, it's tough not to think that things may have played out differently if the 'Cats were able to stretch the lead to 10 or so. Regardless, they left themselves in position to win the game against a very good team, so it's hard to complain.

It then appeared, however, that Villanova had simply saved its penchant for slow starts for the second half. Marquette scored the first six points of the period and extended that run to 11-2, taking an eight -point lead less than five minutes in. It felt like things were slipping away.

To the Wildcats' credit, they responded, and used an 8-0 run over 1:36 to take a one-point lead with 7:07 to play.

Six straight points from Marquette reestablished a five-point lead for the Golden Eagles with 4:02 left, but Villanova again hit back, holding Marquette scoreless over the final 3:14 and scoring the final five points of the period to force overtime. But not before some frustration and drama.

First, the frustration. Villanova had two possessions in the final 1:36 with the score tied. Each ended up being quite poor, with very little direction and a whole lot of dribbling leading to a pair of desperation heaves at the end of the shot clock, one from Eric Dixon and one from Justin Moore. Adding to the frustration was that Neptune was holding a timeout in his pocket.

“We trust them (our players)," Neptune said. "Shaka Smart is a really good coach, switching his defenses up every single time you come out of a timeout. So we just wanted to give our guys a shot to win it. We got a shot for Justin Moore, a makeable shot.”

Next, the drama. Shaka Smart put on a coaching masterclass in the final three seconds after Marquette regained possession with 2.8 seconds to play. First, he ordered a surprisingly easy half-court pass, with his player calling timeout immediately upon reception. As a result, Marquette was able to draw up another play, this time inbounding from halfcourt instead of their own baseline, and the Golden Eagles accomplished all this with just 0.2 seconds elapsing. From there, Smart drew up an absolute beauty of a play that resulted in a great look at the basket, which happened to go in. Fortunately for Villanova, the ball was still on the Marquette player's hands by the slimmest of margins when the clock expired, and the basket was waved off after a lengthy review.

The overtime period was not kind to Villanova. The 'Cats managed just one field goal, shooting 20% and 0-3 from three. Marquette, meanwhile, connected on 57.1% (4-7) and 2-3 from three, taking the six-point win and putting the final nail in the coffin of Villanova's tournament hopes.

In a game that was pretty evenly played, a couple numbers stand out. One is points in the paint, where Marquette had a 30-16 edge. 20 of those 30 points came in the second half and overtime. The other, perhaps more important, one is points off turnovers, where Marquette had an 11-4 advantage as Villanova committed 11 turnovers while forcing just five. That seven-point difference is pretty glaring in a six-point loss.

There will be time to assess what became an incredibly disappointing season (remember when Villanova was 6-1 with wins over Texas Tech and UNC? It's almost unfathomable that this team isn't making the tournament), but for now we're left to process this latest chapter and wait to see if the program accepts an invitation to the NIT.