VILLANOVA, Pa. – The Villanova Wildcats (5-4 overall) make their first appearance of 2024-25 at their second home, the Wells Fargo Center, as they meet Temple in the second game of the Toyota Big Five Classic Saturday at approximately 4:30 p.m.
NBC Sports Philadelphia Plus will carry each of Saturday's local matchups beginning with Penn and Drexel at 2 p.m. and the title game featuring La Salle and Saint Joseph's 30 minutes following the conclusion of the Villanova-Temple clash. Matt Martucci will handle play by play duties while John Giannini is the color analyst. Taryn Hatcher will handle sideline reporting.
Officially, Villanova will be the "visitor" wearing the dark uniforms for the meeting with the Owls. It's the first encounter between the two squads since November of 2022, when Temple sank four free throws in the final minute to secure a 68-64 win at the Liacouras Center. The Owls are coached by Adam Fisher, who spent two seasons as a graduate assistant at Villanova from 2007-09 for former head coach Jay Wright.
With Villanova Football set to kick off at 2 p.m. in its FCS playoff game Saturday at Incarnate Word, there will be a few alterations to the usual Villanova Sports Network on IHeart schedule. The Men's Basketball game can be heard in its entirety beginning with the pregame show at 4:15 p.m. on Sirius XM channel 81 or the Sirius XM app at the link in the box above.
Fox Sports Radio Philadelphia will join the basketball game in progress immediately after the conclusion of the football game.
Ryan Fannon will be in San Antonio for the football game. Whitey Rigsby will slide over to handle play-by-play chores in South Philadelphia and will be joined by 2016 NCAA national champion Kris Jenkins in the analyst chair.
On the hardwood, the Wildcats are looking to build on Tuesday night' 68-60 win over No. 14 Cincinnati. Head coach
Kyle Neptune called that his team's most complete effort thus far in 2024-25.
"I'm not going to lie," said
Eric Dixon, who led the Wildcats with 31 points and seven rebounds against the Bearcats. "It's nice to win. But that doesn't change the fact that we have to come back and get better."
One area of improvement for a roster featuring nine newcomers has been a reduction in turnovers. The Wildcats have committed 27 turnovers in the last three games (9.0 per game) after turning the ball over 84 times in their first six outings (an average of 14.0 per game). Guard
Jhamir Brickus – who scored a career high 41 points in a game last season against Temple while playing for La Salle last season – was especially impactful on Tuesday, dishing out nine assists without a turnover.
"You just keep tapping away to be a solid player," said Brickus, who leads Villanova with a 5.0 assist per game average. "It's not looking to make the fantastic play, but the solid play. As long as we do that, we'll be (good)."
Noted Neptune: "Jig is just a great basketball player. He happens to be our point guard, but he just sees the game at an elevated level. He sees the plays before they happen. He can handle it or shoot it, and obviously makes great decisions. He makes plays for others.
"When you have someone like that, you can put them in pick and rolls or iso's (isolation plays), break the press. He just does so many things offensively for our team. That's a dangerous player for the opposition. Thank God he is on our side."
Temple and Villanova met four times from 1985-95 across the parking lot from the Center, when the Spectrum was one of the hubs of Philly sports. This is the first clash between the squads at the Center and first since the Big Five Classic debuted a season ago. It is also the penultimate non-conference regular season battle for Villanova, which wraps up its non-league slate at Finneran Pavilion Wednesday night vs. FDU (7 p.m/FS1).
