Looking to shake off a disappointing performance against Providence over the weekend, Villanova faced the tough task of taking on a wounded defending national champion that is playing for its tournament life in its home building. For about 28 minutes, the Wildcats looked more than up to the task. Over the final 12 minutes, however, they got back into their habit of inventing ways to lose basketball games, and when the buzzer sounded had managed to suffer and stunning (and yet not stunning) 66-59 loss.

Villanova played a solid first half. After both offenses struggled to get things going over the first four minutes or so of the game, ‘Nova broke through first with a 9-0 run to open a 16-6 lead. The Wildcats, however, continued a recent trend of immediately giving up significant runs after establishing their largest lead of the game, and on Tuesday UConn ripped off an 8-0 push to pull back within two. The ‘Cats were able to respond to UConn’s answer, though, and scored seven of the final nine points of the half to carry an eight-point lead into the break.

The difference in the first half was the three-point line, where Villanova shot 50 percent (5-10) to UConn’s 11 percent (1-9).

‘Nova kept things going early in the second half, using an 8-0 run to push the lead to 11, but once again UConn answered with six straight to get back within five. But the ‘Cats responded with an 11-2 push to take a 14-point lead with 11:58 to play. It’s hard to find words to explain or describe what happened over that final 11:58.

The facts are that Villanova scored a measly six points over nearly 12 minutes of game time. Villanova was outscored over that period 27-6. And Villanova had turned a 14-point lead into a seven-point loss.

“Unfortunately down the stretch they just made plays, we didn’t make them,” Kyle Neptune said. “Lot of credit goes out to those guys, they play hard.”

Villanova led for 32:32 and trailed for only 2:32.

“They came after us, it was a press they hadn’t used as much so they did a good job coming after us, being physical, took us out of what we wanted to do,” Neptune said. “Good job on their part.”

The “good” news is that the outcome of this game has no meaning, at least in terms of the prospects for this season. Win or lose, Villanova wasn’t going dancing without winning the Big East Tournament.

The bad news is that this kind of loss and become far, far too common. It happened against Xavier. It happened against Georgetown. Something similar happened against St. John’s. The other bad news is that this game serves as a microcosm of what the program has become: collapses/inability to close games/inability to win games you should win and maddening inconsistency: 2022-23…beat KenPom’s Nos. 12 and 15 but lose to Nos. 119, 120, 135 and 157 and go 5-6 in games decided by two or fewer possessions…2023-24…win the Battle 4 Atlantis, beat KenPom Nos. 9, 11 and 31 but lose to Nos. 99, 126 and 213 and go 5-8 in games decided by two or fewer possessions…2024-25…beat KenPom Nos. 18 and 36 but lose to Nos. 82, 83, 85, 105 and 249 and go 3-4 in games decided by two or few possessions (with four regular season games to play).

Ultimately it was another chapter in what has become a frustrating trend as Villanova closes out a season that is shaping up to be a carbon copy of the two preceding it.