It was a day to forget for Villanova in Texas, as the Wildcats were blown out by Baylor 57-36 Sunday afternoon.

There’s really not a whole lot to say. Villanova got off to a horrible start and never recovered. The Wildcats made just one of their first ten field goal attempts and suffered through a drought that lasted 7:25. A Caleb Daniels 3 broke the drought, and despite the offensive struggles the ‘Cats found themselves down only five points. However, a 13-2 Baylor run over the next seven minutes pushed the advantage to 16. ‘Nova was able to trim six points off the deficit before halftime and went into the break trailing 25-15.

An Eric Dixon bucket to open the second-half scoring got the ‘Cats within single digits, and they managed to stay within nine and 12 through the first six minutes of the second half. But a 9-0 spurt from Baylor pushed the margin to 18, and the Wildcats would never truly threaten again, eventually falling by 21 points.

‘Nova had a couple of chances to pull within five or six early in the second half and perhaps that could have changed things a bit, but it could never take advantage of those opportunities.

Villanova simply had no answer for the Baylor defense. The Wildcats shot a dismal 22.2% from the floor, making just 12 baskets all game while committing 13 turnovers.

“Baylor’s an outstanding defensive team,” Jay Wright said. “As physical, tough and quick as anybody we’ve played against. Obviously, we really struggled scoring, I give them the credit for that. They did a good job. We didn’t do a bad job defensively, we just couldn’t score. They were just in us, physical, athletic, quick and we really struggled with it.”

Adding to the frustration is the fact that Villanova ended up wasting a pretty good defensive performance. The Wildcats held a very good offensive team to 57 points. Baylor shot just 39.3% overall and 25% from 3. But the Bears did a much better job than Villanova at handling the defensive intensity. While ‘Nova looked rushed and out of sorts Baylor was calm, composed and patient.

Villanova lost the turnover battle 13-11 and points off turnovers 12-5. The Wildcats were outrebounded 42-35 and were outscored in the paint 22-12.

The Wildcats will have to try to learn the lessons from the humbling performance and move on.