DePaul No. 8/8 Villanova

When: Saturday, 4 p.m.

Where: The Pavilion, Villanova, Pa.

Television: CBS Sports Network (Andrew Catalon, Steve Lappas, and Evan Washburn)

Radio: Villanova IMG Network: 560 AM / Sirius 113/XM 201/villanova.com and TuneIn Radio (Ryan Fannon & Whitey Rigsby)

Series: Villanova leads 16-8

Game Notes / Listen

VILLANOVA, Pa. - The resurgent DePaul Blue Demons, atop the BIG EAST standings after a 3-0 start to the conference season, are in town to meet the No. 8 Villanova Wildcats (14-1, 2-1 BIG EAST) in a late Saturday afternoon matinee at the Pavilion.

The Blue Demons (9-7 overall, 3-0 BIG EAST) defeated Marquette and Xavier at home in Rosemont, Ill., last week and then became the first conference squad to earn a victory at CenturyLink Center in Omaha, when they upended Creighton 70-60 on Wednesday night as Forrest Robinson netted a career-high 20 points, including 5 3-pointers.

Junior Myke Henry (13.4 ppg) leads a balanced attack alongside sophomore guard Billy Garrett, Jr. (13.1 ppg), who was named BIG EAST Rookie of the Year in 2013-14. Villanova coach Jay Wright points to a versatile lineup as one of the reasons DePaul is off to such a strong start in conference play.

"DePaul is playing better this year (and) they're playing significantly better in their last three games," stated Wright. "They've been playing with four guards and the fifth guy is a 3-point shooter. They're better defensively because of that and they're far better offensively because of that.

"They are a really difficult team to prepare for and a really difficult team to play."

In fact, Wright sees parallels between his own roster and the one that coach Oliver Purnell brings to Villanova Saturday.

"They're very similar to us," notes Wright.

For its part, Villanova hopes to build on the momentum of a strong second half on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden. The Wildcats produced a 56-point explosion after trailing 35-34 at intermission to pull away from No. 24 St. John's for a 90-72 victory. Senior Darrun Hilliard set the scoring pace with 21 points and junior Daniel Ochefu delivered another strong outing, scoring 13 points and collecting 13 caroms.

Ochefu has averaged 15.3 rpg in BIG EAST Conference play thus far and is tied for the conference rebounding lead at 9.0 rpg with Butler's Kameron Woods. The native of Baltimore also leads the conference in field goal percentage (.663).

"Daniel works really hard," stated Wright. "He just keeps improving every day. He had a career high against Seton Hall (Jan. 3) and came back to practice the next day wanting to get better. Our guys look for him more. He's more confident. The (St. John's) game was a hard game for him to play in - they're so quick, it's hard for a big guy to play in a game like that. He did a lot of good things besides scoring and rebounding."

This is the first of consecutive home games for the Wildcats, who host Xavier at the Pavilion on Wednesday night at 9:00 p.m. (Fox Sports 1).

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