The Villanova Wildcats and Marquette Golden Eagles meet in college basketball action from Fiserv Forum on Wednesday night.
The Villanova Wildcats will look to add to their third straight win after a 73-62 win over St. John’s last time out. Collin Gillespie leads the Wildcats in scoring with 17.1 PPG as well as in assists with 3 APG while Justin Moore has 15.5 PPG with 4.9 RPG and Jermaine Samuels has 10 PPG with a team-high 6.3 RPG to make up the trio of double-digit scorers for Villanova so far this season. Brandon Slater also has 8.1 PPG with 3.7 RPG while Caleb Daniels has 9.2 PPG with 3.5 RPG and Eric Dixon also has 9.3 PPG a team-high 6.5 RPG as well on the year. As a team, Villanova’s averaging 72.5 PPG on 43.7% shooting from the field, 36.6% from three and 82.4% from the foul line while allowing 60.1 PPG on 39.8% shooting from the field and 30.5% from three this season.
The Marquette Golden Eagles will look to bounce back from a 65-63 loss to Providence in their last game. Justin Lewis leads the Golden Eagles in scoring and rebounding with 16.5 PPG and 7.9 RPG while Darryl Morsell has 13.4 PPG as the only other double-digit scorer for Marquette so far this season. Tyler Kolek also leads Marquette in assists with a team-high 6.1 APG as well this season. As a team, Marquette is averaging 73.7 PPG on 45% shooting from the field, 35% from three and 72.8% from the foul line while allowing 68.7 PPG on 40.1% shooting from the field and 30.9% from three this season.
Villanova is 7-3 ATS in their last 10 games overall and 7-2 ATS in their last 9 games against a team with a winning record while the under is 5-0 in their last 5 Wednesday games. Marquette is 4-0 ATS in their last 4 home games and 8-0 ATS in their last 8 games overall while the under is 7-1 in their last 8 home games against a team with a winning road record.
I get the case to be made for Marquette at home in this one, but I backed Creighton in the rematch after they beat Villanova in the first meeting earlier on in the year and that blew up in my face as a ticked-off Villanova team won by 34 and held Creighton to 41 points. The Wildcats are like an elephant, they don’t forget. Marquette’s been on a nice run, but I think Villanova comes out fired up like they had this game circled on their calendars and get themselves a win and cover here.