PHILADELPHIA, Pa. – With Penn pressing out on its shooters, Villanova (5-2 overall) rode the driving scoring of Collin Gillespie and Brandon Slater to a 71-56 Philadelphia Big Five victory Wednesday night at the Palestra.
 
Gillespie finished with 26 points, dropping in 9-of-15 from the field, including 4-of-8 from long range. Slater connected on seven of his eight field goal attempts to finish with 16 points. Jordan Dingle led the Quakers with 21 points.
 
"I just love their team," stated Villanova head coach Jay Wright of Penn. "I love watching film of them. You watch certain teams preparing to play them and you get caught up watching all the good things they do, the intelligent way they play. That's why they're always a tough matchup for us. We couldn't put them away, they hit tough shots in this place.
 
"Because of all that, I was proud of our guys' mental toughness. Every time we thought we had a chance to break it open, they hit tough shots. We didn't break either. It was an ugly game but it's good when you can win those."
 
Villanova scored nine of the game's first 10 points, but Penn came right back to reel off eight straight including a pair of 3-pointers, to tie the contest with 13:49 to play in the first half. But the Wildcats turned up the defensive heat, holding the Quakers without a field goal for 6:32. In that span Nova scored 13 of its own points to grab a 22-9 edge with just over eight minutes to go in the first half.
 
With Gillespie leading the way, Villanova pushed its advantage to 28-12 before back-to-back 3-pointers from Max Martz closed the margin to 28-18 at the final official timeout of the first period.
 
Five straight points from Slater and more quality defense helped VU close out the half with a 33-21 lead. Gillespie (13 points) and Slater (nine) carried the offensive load for Villanova while Martz paced the Quakers (nine).
 
Villanova limited Penn to 7-of-25 shooting in the first half (.280). Six of those field goals, were from beyond the 3-point arc (6-of-16, .375).
 
"They do a great job of taking away 3's," noted Wright. "They don't help off anybody and that's why both Collin and Slate were really good. Guys who can score off of the dribble, or go get their own shot, are effective because of the way they play. Collin and Slate, the experienced guys, knew they could go off the dribble to score. You're not going to get your teammates shots in a game like this. You have to look to score."
 
The Wildcats were able to stretch their advantage to 42-27 but Penn put together a 7-1 run to narrow its deficit to 43-34 at the 11:08 mark of the second half.
 
The pattern continued the rest of the way. Villanova's lead never sank below nine points, however, and the Wildcats found enough ways to score to hold off the Quakers. The final count was 71-56.
 
"You can look at the NBA," said Wright. "There are so many good players that what it comes down to is somebody being able to go get their own shot. You hope you don't have to rely on that, but sometimes against the best teams, the toughest teams, you do. Collin's great at that, Justin's good at that, though he had a tough night, and Slate's getting really good at it. That's been a big help to us."
 
"We knew going in from experience of playing them and the coaches watching film that they like to take drive and space opportunities for kick outs away," Gillespie said. "We had to play off our jump shot and then use our concepts and habits to go to score first. If they took it away, then look to make the right play."
 
Added Slater: "We just work on being great all-around players. We practice catch to shoot and playing off of our jump shot first. At the beginning of the game they were playing off my shot, so I couldn't get into the lane. They were sticking with our shooters and they weren't giving Eric an easy way to catch the ball in the post. So I had the opportunity then to take the ball to the basket."
 
Also helpful to the Villanova cause was a 41-26 advantage on the glass, with Moore's 11 caroms leading the way.
 
Next up for the Wildcats is their first home-court action in nearly three weeks. Villanova hosts its first Philadelphia Big Five game of 2021-22 at Finneran Pavilion Saturday at noon.