Villanova entered Saturday night’s clash with UCLA in desperate need of a win. It got it, outlasting the Bruins 65-56 at Wells Fargo Center.

“Really proud of our guys,” Kyle Neptune said. “Grind out win against a great defensive team. I was proud of our guys’ resiliency on a night we don’t make shots. I was just proud of our guys’ resolve.”

The Wildcats managed to hold several leads in the first period and led for twice as long as the Bruins (11:22 to 5:04). It was the Bruins, however, that delivered the biggest blows of the half. After ‘Nova took its biggest lead of the game at six with 12:58 to play, UCLA responded with a 10-0 run to take a four-point lead. The ‘Cats battled back, using a 7-0 push to retake a three-point advantage. But UCLA used yet another 10-0 run to wrestle the lead back and carry a four-point lead into the break.

Villanova’s offense again struggled mightily in the first half, as the ‘Cats shot just 26% overall and 21% from three. The Wildcats were an abysmal 2-9 on layup attempts and just 4-12 from two-point range. For the second game in a row, ‘Nova suffered through a seven-plus minute drought.

Villanova outscored UCLA 16-9 over the first 7:05 of the second half thanks to a combination of trading threes for twos and getting to the free throw line, taking a three-point lead. Once again, UCLA responded, this time with a 7-0 run to go up four. But this time, Villanova would land the big blow, answering with an 11-0 push to take its biggest lead of the game.

The Wildcats would push the lead to 11 before UCLA made its final push, which came in the form of a 7-2 run to pull within four with 1:19 to play. But TJ Bamba would deliver the nail in the coffin in spectacular fashion. After Jordan Longino tossed a desperation jumper at the end of the shot clock, Bamba swooped in for the offensive rebound, putting the ball back up in one motion just before the shot clock expired, putting ‘Nova up 60-54 with 40 seconds to play.

From there, ‘Nova would close things out from the free throw line, eventually claiming the nine-point win.

As we noted, and as Neptune touched on in his postgame comments, offense was a struggle again, although it was somewhat better in the second half. Still, ‘Nova managed just 33% overall and 31% from three and failed to reach 70 points for the third time in its last four games. To the team’s credit, it didn’t let the offensive struggles disrupt the rest of the game and found other ways to score. ‘Nova won points of turnovers and points in the paint while getting to the line 21 times and outscoring UCLA from the line by 11. The ‘Cats also held UCLA to 37% shooting both overall and from three and just 31%/22% in the second half.

“That’s something that we’ve been talking about,” Neptune said. “Any good team, they’re not gonna have every night where you shoot the ball great. In fact, there’ll be a lot of nights where you don’t shoot the ball great and some nights where you shoot the ball terribly. You never wanna be a team that says ‘oh well we just didn’t make shots.’ That’s never been us, we don’t want that to be us. We wanna say ‘alright we didn’t make shots, we still got stops and found a way.’”

On Saturday, they did.

Just want to note a few individual performances. Hakim Hart scored 10 points with three huge three-pointers to go with five rebounds and two assists. He was a team-high +17 and, much like he did against Kansas State, made huge plays at both ends of the floor.

“Hak is just an overall basketball player,” Neptune said. “He does everything. He can handle the ball, he can shoot the ball, he can make decisions. He can guard a guard, he can guard bigger guys. He just keeps you connected.”

Nnanna Njoku played seven minutes Saturday night and managed to make those minutes impactful. He had three rebounds and two blocks, making several nice defensive plays and posting a +7.

“I thought Nnanna was big for us rebounding-wise, defending as well,” Neptune said. “He’s a defensive juggernaut. I was glad he got out there and got to contribute, he was big-time for us.”

Tyler Burton didn’t have his jump shot working, but he did a great job attacking the basket and getting to the foul line, ending up with a team-high 18 points on 11-14 from the foul line. He also had 10 rebounds.

The win snapped a three-game losing streak for the ‘Cats and allowed them to end the non-conference portion of their schedule on a positive note. It also added another solid win to the resume, something that could be key as the team needs to offset some of the disappointing losses and gave the ‘Cats a viable path to earn enough wins in Big East play to punch a ticket to the Big Dance.

Villanova now gets a long layoff, as it won’t take the court again until December 20 when it opens Big East play with a difficult trip to Creighton.