MILWAUKEE, Wisc.ââ'¬" In an up-tempo display of college basketball Saturday, No. 1 Villanova held off a persistent push from Marquette to post an 89-79 victory here.

Juniors Kris Jenkins and Josh Hart each scored 19 points to lead the Wildcats in the win.

With the victory, Villanova improves to 25-4 overall, 14-2 in the BIG EAST. This marks the 12th season in program history in which the Wildcats have posted 25 or more wins. The first six of those took place from 1920-2005. The six most recent such seasons have come since 2006, including the last three in a row.

The Wildcats connected on 57 percent of their field goal attempts and were credited with 20 assists on their 30 made field goals.

"That was a tough Big East game and that's not a surprise," stated Villanova head coach Jay Wright at the post-game press conference. "It would seem that we would be disappointed with how we played, the turnovers (17). Marquette is the best in our league at turning people over. They've got young guys that play really hard. This is a really good team and a tough team to play against.

"We shot 57 percent but with those 17 turnovers, every time they turned us over they scored. That was a big part of the game."

Another key for Villanova was the work of senior forward Daniel Ochefu, who ended the day with 18 points and 12 rebounds.

"Daniel was rolling, playing great and it was the Marquette game (Jan. 13) that he first got hurt in," recalled Wright. "Since that game, he had a tough time coming back from that (tailbone) injury, then he had the flu, then he had a concussion. So, we're just getting him back going again. We need to use him. He's a force.

"It's not just Daniel's scoring. To only have two turnovers with as much as he handles the ball for us, even in press offense is big. He was huge for us."

Villanova moved out to a 7-4 lead over the first 4:06 as the triumvirate of Jalen Brunson, Jenkins, and Hart helped ignited the offense. The Wildcats were able to extend that advantage to 31-19 with 6:15 to play in the first half thanks to crisp passing and accuracy from the field as VU connected on 12 of its first 19 attempts from the floor on the afternoon.

Yet a 7-0 over run by the Golden Eagles accomplished in under less than two minutes brought the sellout crowd at the BMO Harris Bradley Center right back into things. A couple of sharp defensive plays by Marquette forced two turnovers in this sequence and it was suddenly 32-29 with just over five minutes left in the period.

The Wildcats regrouped to outscore the Golden Eagles 10-8 over the final minutes of the period and took a 42-37 lead into the halftime break.

In the first half VU had 11 assists on its 17 field goals and connected on .586 of its attempts from the floor.

Marquette, meanwhile, was efficient at the offensive end as well, converting 13-of-26 (.500) over the first 20 minutes with Henry Ellenson leading the way with 10 points. Hart led Villanova with 10 points.

Five quick points by senior Ryan Arcidiacono helped VU burst out of the second half gate on an 8-0 to push the lead to 50-39. But Marquette came right back with five straight points of its own and was back to within 50-44 with 15:48 to play in the second half.

"That was big," Wright stated. "You know that when you come into this place it gets really loud and they can get on a roll. We got a couple of steals, got out in transition and got a couple of easy buckets. We were able to get a little bit of a cushion and that was really important. If they had cut it to a one or two point game, anything could have happened."

Marquette kept applying scoring pressure but each time it did, Villanova had an offensive answer. It also helped that the Wildcats converted 22-of-25 free throw attempts including a 6-of-6 effort from Phil Booth and a 5-of-5 worksheet from Jenkins.

The final count was 89-79.

The Wildcats return to the Pavilion on Tuesday night to host DePaul in the penultimate game of the BIG EAST regular season (7 p.m./FS1 and 610 Sports Radio WTEL). A home date with Georgetown on March 5 at the Wells Fargo Center will bring the curtain down on the regular season for VU.

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