Villanova entered Big East play with a bit of momentum, having won four straight games. The Wildcats were able to continue that momentum, kicking off the conference slate with a 79-67 win over Seton Hall, and they answered at least one question that lingered over the team in the process.

The Wildcats have been carried offensively by Eric Dixon this season, with the big man entering the game leading the nation in scoring (25.8 ppg). Against Seton Hall, it looked early like that would continue, as Dixon scored Villanova’s first seven points while connecting on three of his first four shots. Dixon would be unable to maintain his hot start, however, as he missed his final four shot attempts in the half and scored just two points over the period’s final 15:58. That could spell put one question that has hounded Villanova amid Dixon’s dominance front and center: can the Wildcats win without the big man carrying the offensive load?

It was Tyler Perkins who first stepped in to answer that question. The Penn transfer came off the bench and hit his first four shots, including three threes, en route to 11 first-half points. Perkins didn’t do it alone, however. Jordan Longino had five first-half assists and just one turnover, while Jhamir Brickus had five points on 2-3 shooting and continued to be masterful orchestrating the Villanova attack, dishing out four assists while not committing a turnover. As a result, Villanova was able to carry a 37-29 lead into the break.

The half was punctuated by perhaps the best instance of “Villanova basketball” we’ve seen from the Wildcats this year. With just over two minutes remaining in the half, Josiah Moseley dove on a loose ball. He was able to flip the ball to Perkins, who quickly passed it ahead to Longino. Longino then found Brickus, who finished a nifty layup. The play brought the Pavilion crowd to its feet and prompted a timeout from Seton Hall.

“I think that’s Villanova basketball,” Neptune said of the sequence. “We want to be a team that gets to the floor first, that’s playing hard for 40 minutes, that’s scrappy and makes those types of plays.”

The Pirates tried to hand tough in the second half, but Villanova was able to keep the lead at two or more possessions for the entire period. Seton Hall got no closer than four (with 17:01 to go), and from there ‘Nova got to work building the margin, taking a lead as large as 17 before settling on the final margin of 12.

The second half success was largely thanks to Longino, who scored 12 points in the period en route to his best offensive game of the season with 15 points to go with five assists and two steals. Dixon also regained his form, hitting 5-9 shot for 16 second-half points, and managing to finish with 25 despite not having his most efficient (8-18) or dominant game.

“He’s just does so many different things in so many different ways and you look up at the end and you see that he has 25,” Neptune said. “He’s a special scorer.”

While Dixon managed to essentially reach his season average and ultimately scored a significant percentage of Villanova’s points, the contributions from his teammates, and their ability to help weather a cold stretch from their star, were huge. We’ve seen Wooga Poplar and even Jhamir Brickus supply some supplemental scoring punch this season, but it was particularly encouraging to see it from Longino and Perkins.

“We evaluate ourselves on the defensive end, he’s been a big-time defensive player for us all year,” Neptune said of Longino. “I didn’t even notice that he had 15, he can make shots. He hasn’t made shots at the clip I think he would want to, but again we don’t evaluate ourselves on that, we look at how he’s keeping our guys connected and what he’s doing for us on the defensive end.”

Perkins, meanwhile, finished with 17 points on 6-7 shooting overall, including 5-6 from three. He added five rebounds and an assist and was a game-high +20.

“He’s a guy that always brings it defensively, he’s a guy that always brings energy,” Neptune said about Perkins. “We know he’s a scorer, that’s what he does. He doesn’t always get the looks, but when he’s open he can definitely make shots and he got free a bunch of times and guys hit him. That’s Tyler Perkins, if you leave him open he can definitely make shots.”

Perkins didn’t sound particularly impressed with his performance.

“I’m just playing,” Perkins said. “I’m focused on defense and rebounding and everything else will take care of itself.”

“I think it was just my teammates,” Perkins added. “They were finding me in positions for me to be able to succeed.”

Despite Dixon shooting an uncharacteristic 44.4%, Villanova managed to shoot 55.3% overall, including 65.4% on two-point attempts. For the second game in a row, the Wildcats moved the ball well and were rewarded, assisting on 17 of their 26 made field goals.

“Our guys are just so unselfish and they’re making the right reads and I think they’re really starting to trust each other,” Neptune said.

“We knew that they were a team that likes to get up in you, press,” Longino said. “So for us, me and Jig (Brickus), being the two main ballhandlers we just wanted to be solid, still be aggressive when can, really just move the ball. Just kind of get ball movement, make sure we’re being solid and not turning the ball over.”

While the outside noise may have focused on Villanova’s ability to perform offensively without Dixon carrying the load, it didn’t sound like such a concern ever occurred to coach Neptune.

“Our guys share the ball,” Neptune said. “This is the Big East, they’re gonna try to take away different things and it’s gonna be different guys different nights. Obviously today was Tyler’s night, they took away some of our other guys. That’s the Big East, you’re going against high level coaches, high level players. They’re gonna follow the game plan and we’re gonna need different guys to step up.”

“We got guys that can make shots, we got guys that can score,” Neptune concluded. “If we can defend and rebound like that I think we’ll be in a good spot.”