OMAHA, Neb. – Villanova is ready to open the BIG EAST portion of its regular season Friday night here against the Creighton Bluejays at 8 p.m. eastern time. The game will air nationally on FS1 (Brandon Gaudin and Steve Lavin) and via audio on the Villanova IHeart Radio Network (Ryan Fannon and Steve Pinone).
 
These two teams finished atop the BIG EAST regular season standings in 2020-21. The Wildcats edged the Bluejays for first place by virtue of a 72-60 victory on Mar. 3, 2021 at Finneran PavilioBoth teams are hoping to rebound from non-conference losses earlier in the week. Baylor, which now sits atop both the Associated Press and USA Today Coaches polls, stymied the Wildcats offense in a 57-36 win on Sunday in Waco, Tex. Creighton dropped a one-point decision at CHI Health Arena to Arizona State on Tuesday night to fall to 8-3 overall this season.
 
The Wildcats (7-3 overall, 0-0 BIG EAST) believe they have turned the page from Sunday's struggles in the loss to the Bears.
 
"Baylor is one of the best teams in the country so there is a lot you can learn from in how they play," stated Villanova guard Collin Gillespie on a Thursday afternoon Zoom call with the media after a Wildcats practice on campus. "We came back, watched the film and got back into practice to work on our habits and concepts, fine-tuning those."
 
In addition to opening BIG EAST regular season play this week, the Wildcats have been in the middle of fall semester exams.
 
"We're in the midst of finals here but have still had pretty good practices this week," stated Villanova head coach Jay Wright. "We're looking forward to getting the Big East season started. Creighton is always a tough place to play. They've got a lot of new guys but, it's amazing, the system is the same. The pace of play, speed and defensive toughness is the same. It's impressive how Coach McDermott keeps that system rolling.
 
"It's always a tough place to play and a tough system to match up with."
 
Wright too feels like the Wildcats are in a good place after the tough afternoon Sunday.
 
"I think we've rebounded well," noted Wright. "I think these guys have learned over the years that we want to take every loss as an opportunity to grow. I hope we have done that. We learned about how much harder we have to play and how we have to execute better offensively. I hope we can show that at Creighton."
 
The Bluejays captured last season's meeting between the teams in Omaha, 86-70.
 
A pair of Wildcats are approaching career milestones as BIG EAST action gets underway.
 
Forward Jermaine Samuels enters Friday night with 985 points and could become just the 69^th player in program history to score 1,000 or more points.
 
Gillespie, who moved past Villanova radio analyst Whitey Rigsby into 18^th place on the career assists chart, is just five helpers away from the 400 plateau (395).
 
Villanova is slated to open the home portion of its BIG EAST schedule Tuesday evening at Finneran Pavilion at 7 p.m. (FS1 and the Villanova IHeart Radio Network).