Villanova had a night to forget in Queens in its first trip to Carnesecca Arena since 1994. After a solid start, the Wildcats were thoroughly outplayed and simply didn’t look like the Villanova team we’ve come to expect. As a result, the nine-game winning streak disappeared as the ‘Cats fell to St. John’s 70-59.

Things started off well enough. ‘Nova ran out to a 7-0 lead to start the game and built the lead to 14-6 with just over 14 minutes to go in the half. Then the wheels fell off. St. John’s ripped off a 17-5 run over seven minutes to take a four-point lead. Villanova would retake the lead with just over five minutes to play in the half on consecutive 3s from Eric Dixon and Caleb Daniels, but the Johnnies would immediately respond with five-straight points and would eventually take a three-point lead into the break.

Villanova shot just 28.6% overall in the half and 27.8% from 3. That’s particularly disappointing against a team like St. John’s who had posted poor opponent field goal percentage numbers so far this season. The ‘Cats also had turnover problems, committing seven in the half.

The second half was a disaster right from the start. St. John’s opened the period on a 7-0 run to push the lead to 10 and extended the run to 15-4 to take a 14-point advantage just over six minutes in. The ‘Cats would trail by as many as 17 and wouldn’t get any closer than nine the rest of the way as the turnovers piled up and the shots wouldn’t fall. When the final buzzer sounded, ‘Nova was handed an 11-point loss.

“One of those tough nights on the road in the Big East,” Jay Wright said. “We knew coming in how well they’re playing. They got a great plan, great defensive concepts, played extremely well. They just played better than us on both ends of the floor. I think our turnovers, our poor shooting was just a credit to their defense and their physicality.”

It’s not hard to see what went wrong. Villanova committed an uncharacteristic 17 turnovers, leading to 19 St. John’s points. Just an important, the miscues prevented the Wildcats from getting into a rhythm at either end of the floor. ‘Nova shot an abysmal 32.3% from the floor and just 26.7% from 3. The ‘Cats also connected on just 37.5% from 2-point range.

Villanova also suffered a rare disadvantage from the 3-point line, with St. John’s gaining six points from beyond the arc.

The Wildcats were able to get the better of things on the glass, pulling down 15 offensive rebounds and winning the second-chance points battle 16-10. But it just wasn’t enough to overcome the poor shooting, turnovers, and failure to win the long-range battle.

At times ‘Nova looked like it was rushed and taking some questionable shots, but it also got a decent amount of good looks that simply didn’t go down. “They really took us out of what we wanted to do,” Wright said. “I thought in the first half we did get good looks at 3s, we just missed them. And then we got a little tentative taking those looks and we got out of our rhythm, kind of drove it when it wasn’t there, and stopped looking for open shots when they were there. You gotta give them the credit for that. That’s what they’re trying to do is to disrupt you and get you out of your decision making and that’s what they did a great job of tonight.”

As our long-time followers know, we don’t like to finger-point at individual players and tonight was a complete team loss (no Wildcat posted a positive +/-), but we have to mention Collin Gillespie’s game. St. John’s keyed on Gillespie and did a great job taking him away. The result was a line to forget for Gillespie: four points, three rebounds, six assists, six turnovers. He shot just 2-12 from the floor and 0-8 from 3. “They doubled Collin, they face guarded Collin and they made other guys handle the ball,” Wright said. “We had a plan for that we just didn’t execute it well. I gotta give them credit for that. We couldn’t execute what we wanted to do against them taking Collin away.”

Sometimes you have an off night, sometimes the other team focuses on you and has success. That’s basketball. “When you’re a leading scorer like that teams are going to come after you,” Wright said. “They did a great job of it tonight. He battled, I just think they did a great job of doubling him, face guarding him, denying him when he was off the ball and he had a tough night. But I know he’ll come back, he’s a tough kid.”

Again, we don’t mean to single Gillespie out or imply that he shoulders the blame. Instead, it shows how good of a plan St. John’s had and how well it executed it. It also shows just how important Gillespie is to this team’s success.

You’re not going to win a whole lot of games shooting that poorly from the floor, especially against a team that has allowed opponents to have good shooting nights this season. Likewise, 17 turnovers aren’t helpful. Villanova was simply outplayed Wednesday night. It happens. More concerning, they were out-worked and out-toughed, which are much more rare occurrences. There might be some more cold shooting nights or games where things are just out of sync, but there won’t likely be too many more where teams get the better of ‘Nova in the toughness department.

It was an ugly, frustrating loss, no doubt about it. But it’s not the worst thing in the world. For one, there are going to be a few clunkers every season, and it’s better to get one out of the way in early February. In addition, sometimes a nice wake-up call isn’t a bad thing. Wednesday’s game should certainly serve to refocus the ‘Cats and shine a spotlight on some things that need improvement. It’s cliché, but this could be one of those “makes you better later in the season” losses.

That doesn’t necessarily ease the sting or frustration, but it should put to rest any feelings of doom and gloom that may be making their way around Nova Nation. Now, we wait to see how the ‘Cats respond Sunday against Georgetown.

Jermaine Samuels: 2p, 6r, 2a, 1s (1-6, 0-2)
Jeremiah Robinson-Earl: 14p, 17r, 2a, 1s (5-14, 1-3, 3-4)
Collin Gillespie: 4p, 3r, 6a, 1s (2-12, 0-8)
Justin Moore: 9p, 5r, 3a, 3s (3-11, 1-5, 2-2)
Caleb Daniels: 16p, 3r (4-10, 3-7, 5-6)
Cole Swider: 6p, 3r (2-5, 2-4)
Brandon Slater: 2p, 1r, 1s (1-1)
Eric Dixon: 6p, 1r (2-3, 1-1, 1-1)