VILLANOVA, Pa. – Villanova wraps up the November portion of its regular season schedule on Thanksgiving Eve, when it hosts Rider at Finneran Pavilion at 7 p.m. Wednesday.
FS2 will air the contest with John Fanta handling play by play duties alongside 2016 Villanova NCAA champion Kris Jenkins. The former Wildcat forward, who scored 1,383 points across four seasons in the Blue and White – including the biggest 3-pointer in school history that provided the winning margin in the 77-74 victory over North Carolina in the 2016 NCAA championship game in Houston.
Ryan Fannon and Whitey Rigsby will have the audio call on the Villanova Sports Radio Network on IHeart beginning with the pregame show at 6:30 p.m.
The Wildcats (3-4 overall) have experienced an up and down month of November. On Sunday, they lost a 76-75 heartbreaker to Maryland at the Saatva Empire Classic at Newark's Prudential Center. Villanova held a 40-28 halftime lead before the Terrapins came charging back to take the lead at 59-55 with just more than eight minutes on the second half clock.
It was a back and forth battle the rest of the way.
Eric Dixon, who finished with a career-best 38 points on 15-of-29 shooting from the field, shouldered a large offensive load down the stretch. Villanova had two looks at potential game-winners in the final 19 seconds after Maryland took the one-point lead on a pair of free throws. Neither
Tyler Perkins nor Dixon, though, could get a 3-pointer to fall.
"It was a one possession game at the end, and we'd love to make that shot," stated Villanova head coach
Kyle Neptune. "The reality, though, is that in a 40-minute game there are a lot of possessions. It could have been any possession in the game that could have changed the outcome.
"We've got to go back and get better. We need to be better at taking care of the details. It could have been one more time boxing out for a rebound or one time getting a loose ball they got to first. One missed assignment could have been the difference in the game."
At the offensive end, Villanova hopes to distribute the scoring load more evenly while continuing to ride the skills of the 6-8 Dixon, who ranks third in NCAA Division I scoring at 26.7 points per game. The Wildcats haven't produced a 20-point per game scorer since 2005-06, when Randy Foye averaged 20.5 points per game for a BIG EAST regular season championship squad that eventually advanced to the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight.
The Wildcats finished with just nine assists in Newark after producing 19 in a 93-49 Big Five win over Penn earlier in the week.
At the other end, the Wildcats were burned by a 48-point second half that saw Maryland drain 17-of-29 field goal attempts (.586).
"We've just got to keep grinding," said Dixon, who now has 1,659 career points as a Wildcat, good for 17
th place on the all-time Villanova points list.
Rider brings a 4-2 overall record with it to the Main Line. This is their seventh consecutive road game to open the 2024-25 regular season and in their most recent action the Broncs downed Bucknell 57-53.
