Box Score | Quotes | Photo Gallery

VILLANOVA, Pa. - Nearly six full days had passed since Villanova had absorbed the sting of a 78-58 loss to Georgetown. On Sunday evening, the Wildcats did their best to put that memory behind them by rolling past Creighton 71-50 for their 24th consecutive on-campus triumph.

The No. 4 Wildcats improved to 18-2 overall, 5-2 BIG EAST while the Bluejays dropped to 9-12 overall, 0-8 BIG EAST.

"That was a really good defensive effort by us," stated Villanova head coach Jay Wright. "We've been slipping a little bit defensively - nothing major, just getting a little loose and losing our attention to detail. Georgetown really exposed that. We really focused on that this week and I thought our guys were great.

"We talked to our captains, they took care of it. We just did a really good job defensively."

Villanova used a suffocating defense that kept the Bluejays off the scoreboard for the first 7:12 of the game. By that point the Wildcats had built a 15-0 lead helped in no small part by the fireworks of senior guard Darrun Hilliard, who would end the night with a season-high 24 points to go with five rebounds, two assists and two steals in 32 productive minutes of activity.

"Usually we have done that by coming out and just banging 3's," noted Wright. "This time we just came out and kept getting stops. We were just really good defensively. Darrun Hilliard got a steal right away, Daniel (Ochefu) was protecting the rim, changing shots. I just thought the defensive start to the game was one of our better starts this season."

So good was the defensive work that it allowed the Wildcats to endure an offensive dry spell in the first half that produced only four points over a nearly 10-minute stretch. Yet VU still had a 19-11 lead at the end of that run.

Villanova finished the period on a 10-3 run to grab a 29-14 lead at intermission. Hilliard was responsible for 14 of those points.

The second half saw more scoring but Creighton was unable to close the gap into single digits. It added up to a 71-50 final score and became VU's first BIG EAST victory over the Bluejays since the Omaha-based school joined the conference at the dawn of 2013-14. Last season Creighton handed Villanova its only two conference losses by a total of 49 points.

"I don't think our guys were thinking about last year - I hope not," stated Wright. "I wanted them to be thinking about our (recent) sloppiness defensively and trying to get back to the way we play defensively, regardless of who we play."

"We know what happened last year but it wasn't in our mind," added junior guard Ryan Arcidiacono, who was the only other Wildcat besides Hilliard to finish in double figures with 10 points. "We were coming off getting our butts kicked down at Georgetown. We were just trying to do what Coach (Wright) said - get back to playing the way we were before by being tough defensively and starting everything there.

"That's what we did tonight."

One key to the victory was turnovers - VU forced 19 of them and that led to a 21-2 edge in points off of turnovers. The Wildcats also converted 12-of-26 attempts from beyond the 3-point arc (.462).

James Milliken was the only Bluejay to reach double figures (13 points).

The Wildcats are now idle until Saturday when they visit DePaul at AllState Arena (Fox Sports 1). The contest is slated to get underway just after 2 p.m. eastern time, 1 p.m. in Chicagoland.

Follow Villanova Basketball on social media

Twitter: @NovaMBB #NovaMBB

Instagram: @novambb