Villanova put a stop to its three-game losing streak Wednesday night with a 59-49 win over DePaul. It certainly wasn’t the prettiest game you’ll see, but the Wildcats aren’t in position to be picky and will certainly take it.

“You’re gonna have games throughout the season where you struggle to make shots or offense is not clicking,” Kyle Neptune said. “But if you can defend the way we defended, you’ll always give yourself a chance.”

The teams produced an ugly first half of basketball. Villanova committed four turnovers in the first two-and-a-half minutes of the game. At the first media timeout of the evening, the teams were a combined 4-18 from the field and 1-10 from three. The score was 5-4 Villanova.

“Every game is different, and they really got into us defensively,” Neptune said. “I think after the first media timeout we had like five turnovers, it was crazy. It was just them being physical. I thought they did a great job just getting into us, forcing us into some tough spots, for whatever reason we turned the ball over. It is what it is sometimes, I was proud of our guys fighting back and just kept grinding defensively, I thought that was a key.”

It didn’t get much better from there. With 13:18 to go, Villanova was 2-10, including 0-3 on layups. With just over eight minutes to play in the first half, ‘Nova gave up four offensive rebounds on a single possession, eventually leading to a DePaul bucket. With five minutes to play, the score was 19-19. Shortly after that, Villanova finally scored on consecutive possessions for the first time, first with an Eric Dixon old fashioned three-point play and then a Jordann Dumont three.

When the halftime buzzer mercifully sounded, Villanova held a 29-26 lead. The Wildcats committed nine first-half turnovers leading to eight DePaul points. The Wildcats turned it over on 29 percent of possessions despite DePaul only forcing turnovers on 18.7 percent of possessions this season. As a result, DePaul was within three despite shooting a dismal 31 percent overall and 17 percent from three. The team combined to shoot 22-61 (36 percent) from the floor and 6-26 (23 percent) from three.

Things got a little better in the second half. After the teams traded baskets for the first few minutes of the half, Jordan Longino hit a jumper at the 13:24 mark to give Villanova a five-point lead. While the Wildcats were far from dominant, DePaul wouldn’t get within a possession of Villanova the rest of the way. A Dixon layup with 8:48 to play pushed the ‘Nova lead to seven, and DePaul would get within two possessions just once more, at the 5:51 mark when it pulled within six courtesy of an old fashioned three-point play. But Tyler Perkins would answer with a three, and Dixon would add another triple after a DePaul dunk to give ‘Nova its largest lead of the game at 10. That would prove to be the final margin.

‘Nova managed to shoot 50 percent in the second half, including 57.1 percent from three, while it held DePaul to just 30 percent overall and 22.2 percent from three in the half.

Longino led the way with 17. Dixon struggled, shooting just 4-14, but still chipped in 14 points. Wooga Poplar rounded out the double figure scorers with 12 while adding six rebounds. Perkins finally broke out of his slump a little bit, hitting both of this three-point attempts and scoring eight points. He also had five rebounds and two steals and was a +9, the third best mark on the team.

“He was great,” Neptune said of Perkins. “I thought he gave us a lot of energy, especially defensively. He made some open shots which is always great, but as long as he keeps defending like that I think we’ll be in a good spot.”

It wasn’t a particularly inspiring performance, but it was a win that Villanova desperately needed and got. And despite some of the offensive struggles, the Wildcats put together a strong defensive showing.

“If you’re gonna be a good team by the end [of the season], you gotta be able to not let offense dictate your wins and losses, it’s gotta be defense,” Neptune said. “You gotta defend and rebound at the highest level and I think we did that tonight.”

“At the end of the day I was proud of the way our guys competed,” Neptune concluded.