VILLANOVA, PA. – In the first round of the WBIT on Thursday evening, the No. 1 seed Villanova Wildcats tallied a 75-60 home win over the Virginia Commonwealth Rams. With the victory, the Wildcats improve to 19-12 on the year, while Virginia Commonwealth ends its season at 26-6.

Villanova will now advance to the second round of the WBIT on Sunday, March 24, where the Wildcats will host the Virginia Cavaliers. Game time is set for 2 p.m.

Villanova led 27-22 midway through the second quarter, when the Wildcats ran off five straight points on a three-point field goal by senior Maddie Burke and a short jumper by senior guard Lucy Olsen.

With the Wildcats ready to take control of the game, Virginia Commonwealth scored 10 of the final 14 points of the half to send the teams to intermission with Villanova leading 36-32.

Hot shooting helped Villanova to the halftime lead, as the Wildcats were 14-of-28 from the field, including a 6-of-13 effort from three-point range in the opening half. The Rams were just 12-of-35 from the floor and 2-of-8 from long distance.

After Sarah Te-Biasu scored on a pull-up jumper to cut the Villanova advantage to 46-43 with 5:59 remaining in the third quarter, the Wildcats finished the period on an 18-5 run to take a 64-48 lead after three. Six different Wildcats scored in the spurt led by Burke who had five points on a three-ball and a 15-foot jump shot.

The Rams scored five consecutive points to cut the Wildcat advantage to 66-55 with 7:03 to play, before Villanova put the game away with a triple by junior Kaitlyn Orihel and a jumper by Olsen to open-up a 71-55 lead at the 4:07 mark.

Olsen led the Wildcats with a game-high 29 points on 12-of-21 shooting from the field. Junior guard Zanai Jones tallied 11 points, while Burke had eight points and six rebounds.
Virginia Commonwealth was paced by Te-Biasu with 21 points and Timaya Lewis-Eutsay who had 16 points.

For the game, Villanova shot 51.8 percent from the floor (29-of-56), 37.0 percent from three-point range (10-of-27) and 77.8 percent from the foul line (7-of-9), while the Rams made 23-of-58 from the field (39.7%), 4-of-15 from long distance (26.7%) and 10-of-12 from the charity stripe (83.3%). Villanova owned a 35-30 advantage on the backboards.

NOTES: Villanova improves to 39-30 all-time in postseason play…Tonight was just the second all-time meeting between Villanova and VCU…The Wildcats are now 3-1 versus Atlantic 10 competition this season…Lucy Olsen has 22 games this year of 20 points or more…Olsen moved past Jenea Skeeters and Jackie Adamshick and into 11^th place on Villanova's all-time scoring list with 1,415 career points…The Wildcats are now 11-4 at home this season.