VILLANOVA, Pa. – When Monday's national poll rankings were released, Tuesday night's BIG EAST matchup featuring first place Providence (21-2 overall, 11-1 BIG EAST) and second place Villanova (19-6 overall, 12-3 BIG EAST) gained a little bit more luster.
 
The Friars, who picked up their eighth straight win Saturday night, downing DePaul 76-73 in overtime, moved up to No. 8 in the Associated Press poll and No. 9 in the USA Today Coaches poll.
 
The Wildcats, who knocked off Seton Hall 73-67 earlier that same day at the Wells Fargo Center, climbed from No. 15 to No. 10.
 
That makes the first meeting between the teams in 2021-22 a Top 10 battle. It's only the third such matchup in the nearly 40-year history of the Dunkin Donuts Center.
 
The game will air on the CBS Sports Network. Andrew Catalon and former Villanova head coach Steve Lappas will be on the call with Jenny Dell handling reporter duties. The radio broadcast will be carried by the Villanova IHeart Radio Network, which also airs on Sirius channel 158, XM channel 202).
 
Current projections have as many as seven of the BIG EAST's 11 teams positioned to receive an NCAA Tournament bid when the field of 68 is revealed in a little less than four weeks. Villanova head coach Jay Wright has no doubt about the quality of the conference this season.
 
"Our conference is the best basketball conference in the country," stated Wright. "Year in, year out. Night in, night out. It's just awesome and I'm proud to be a part of it."
 
Providence and Villanova split the two meetings between the teams last season, each unit winning on its own campus. But much has changed in the ensuing 11 months since the Friars upended the Wildcats 54-52 at Alumni Hall last March in the regular season finale.
 
The Friars have won 21 of 23 games after being picked to finish seventh in the preseason BIG EAST poll. Providence is 14-0 this season at the Dunkin Donuts Center and a sellout crowd of more than 12,000 is expected for Tuesday night's clash.
 
When these last two teams met, Collin Gillespie was days removed from suffering the knee injury that prematurely ended his 2020-21 season. In that game, Justin Moore suffered a sprained ankle in the first half and did not return. Jermaine Samuels picked up the slack for his teammates, scoring 21 points to go with eight rebounds.
 
The last time these schools met as members of the Top 25 came in 2015-16. The No. 16 Friars downed Villanova 82-76 on Jan. 24, 2016, as Ben Bentil scored 31 points and Kris Dunn had 14 assists at the Wells Fargo Center.
 
"We've had a lot of battles with Providence over the years and we know how tough it is to be the road team in the Dunk," Wright said. "Ed (Cooley) has done an incredible job this year and they're playing as well as anyone in the country."

Wright reported that both Gillespie and Moore were participants in Villanova's pracitce Monday at Finneran Pavilion. 
 
In other news Monday, Moore was named to the BIG EAST Weekly honor roll after averaging 16.0 points per game in a pair of Wildcats victories last week while playing on a left ankle still impacting him after suffering the original sprain on Feb. 2.