MILWAUKEE — Realistically, the travel delays that landed Villanova into Milwaukee by midday weren’t the problem. The No. 1 team in the Associated Press poll looked sharp and rested in the first half and kept Marquette at arm’s length for most of the second half.
The problem came when Marquette’s jet arrived in all its fury with a quarter of the game remaining.
The Golden Eagles stormed back from 15 points down and shocked the Wildcats at the BMO Harris Bradley Center on Tuesday, 74-72, scoring the winning points at the free throw line with 11.6 seconds to play (see Instant Replay). Jalen Brunson’s driving layup rimmed off, Darryl Reynolds couldn’t push through the tip, and Villanova (19-2) was left dodging court stormers with its second loss of the 2016-17 season.
“We had a pretty good first half,” said Brunson, who was the picture of efficiency in the first 20 minutes with leading scorer Josh Hart sidelined by foul trouble. “Marquette just played a better total 40 minutes. We’ve just got to give them credit. They just played tougher.”
The Wildcats weren't the only big boys to lose in what turned out to be an upset-friendly evening. With No. 2 Kansas falling at West Virginia and No. 4 Kentucky dropping at Tennessee, three of the top four teams in the AP Top 25 poll lost on the same day for the first time since Jan. 21, 2012.
An area which greatly burned the country's top-ranked team Tuesday was shooting behind the arc, where Villanova went 6 of 34, while the Golden Eagles hit 7 of 11 in the second half. At the front of that charge was Katin Reinhardt, who scored 18 of his team-best 19 points after halftime and shot 4 of 7 from distance. He also converted the game-winning free throws after driving and drawing a foul on Kris Jenkins with 11.6 on the clock.
“In the second half, we couldn’t stop them and just settled for a lot of threes,” Wright said. “We didn’t attack the basket and they made every play down the stretch. Even down the stretch, we didn’t get to the rim. We took threes. The 1-3-1 definitely affected us from getting the ball to Kris. They did a good job keeping the ball out of Kris’ hands.”
Jenkins finished 0 for 7 from the field and scored two points. One of Marquette’s key contributors — second-leading scorer Markus Howard — was even less of a factor, fouling out with zero points and just seven minutes played.
Villanova actually looked to be in cruise control despite not playing most of the first half with Hart. Hart committed his second foul — a touch foul that allowed a wide-open Luke Fischer to score and step to the line — at the 15:47 mark of the first half. He stayed off the court until the second half, scoring nine quick points in the first eight minutes of that session to help the Wildcats maintain their 39-24 lead at half.
“It definitely was frustrating, but I tried to be upbeat on the bench and encourage my guys,” Hart said of the foul trouble. “When you do that, you’re still mentally in the game. It’s not hard to go in and fit in.
“They’re very solid, and we knew that coming in. We’ve got to just keep battling, no matter how much we get up, we’ve got to just keep going. We’ve got to have that heart. They did a great job. We’ve got to look at each other. We didn’t play 40 full minutes of Villanova basketball, and that’s something that can’t happen, and that starts with the three seniors. We have to set that tone.”
The Wildcats had a lead as healthy as 58-43 with 11:30 to go, but the Golden Eagles went on a lightning-quick 10-0 run to pull within 68-65 and coax a VU timeout with 2:51 on the clock. The situation could have been worse — Marquette had made only two of its previous eight from the free throw line at that point, but the Golden Eagles ultimately hit their final four free throws to persevere.
Brunson’s steal and score with 2:16 left to make it 70-65 snapped a scoring drought that had lasted for more than four minutes, but Marquette came right back. Reinhardt drilled an off-balance triple with 1:02 left to knot the score at 70-70.
Two free throws from Duane Wilson spotted Marquette (14-6) its first lead of the game, 72-70, with 46.7 seconds on the clock. After Hart’s rebound basket re-knotted the score with 35 seconds to play, Reinhardt added two more free throws with 11.6 on the clock to give Marquette a lead and set up the final possession.
Villanova shot 2 for its final 13 and missed both free throw attempts in that skid.
“That shows how much we settled,” Hart said. “We didn’t get in the lane and make our teammates better. We have to keep playing no matter how much we’re up. We have to have a killer mindset and have heart for the full 40 minutes.”
Marquette appeared to take its best swing early after ‘Nova scored the first eight points of the game and held a 15-4 lead. The Golden Eagles followed with a 14-4 run that had the crowd at the BMO Harris Bradley Center on its feet at the 10:14 mark, but Mikal Bridges hit a three-pointer and ignited a run that helped the Wildcats take a 39-24 lead by halftime.
Lost in the chaos of the finish, Bridges finished with a career-high 20 points, eclipsing the 19 he scored against Wake Forest on Nov. 18. He came into the night averaging 9.8 points and scored 10 by halftime. Brunson, who landed on 19 points, scored 15 in the first half on 5 of 6 shooting.
Marquette was coming off a win over another top-10 team, Creighton, on the road. It was there that Wright saw the 1-3-1 that Marquette employed to effectiveness in the second half against Villanova.
“It’s a mixture of them just mixing it up on defense,” Brunson said. “They played mostly 1-3-1, and they looked different every time. A lot of credit to their defense; they made us work on offense.”