VILLANOVA – In the first round of the WBIT on Thursday evening at the Finneran Pavilion, the Villanova Wildcats registered a 76-70 win over the visiting Boston College Eagles. With the victory, the Wildcats improve to 19-14 on the year, while Boston College finishes the season at 16-18.

Villanova will now advance to the second round of the WBIT on Sunday, March 23, with a road game at Saint Joseph's. This will be the second meeting of the season between the teams. The Wildcats earned an 81-65 win at Saint Joseph's on Dec. 1.

Boston College started quickly racing to an early 15-4 lead. The Eagle defense forced the Wildcats to miss 10 of their first 11 shots, while Boston College connected on six of its first nine shots from the field.

Junior Ryanne Allen gave Villanova a spark and hit back-to-back three-point field goals to highlight an 8-0 Wildcat spurt to cut the lead to 15-12. The Eagles would finish the period going 8-of-18 from the field to lead 22-17 after one quarter of play.

Villanova started the second quarter on a 15-6 run to open-up a 33-28 lead. Five different Wildcats scored in the run with sophomore Maddie Webber and freshman Jasmine Bascoe scoring four points each.

A Webber pull-up jumper gave Villanova its largest lead of the half at 38-31 with 3:02 remaining until halftime, before the Eagles scored the final seven points of the quarter to send the game to intermission tied at 38-38.

Bascoe, who was limited to 12 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble, led the Wildcats with 11 points. Boston College was paced by Teya Sidberry who had 14 points.
With the score tied 48-48 midway through the third quarter, the Eagles used an 8-2 run to open-up a 56-50 advantage. Savannah Samuel led the spurt scoring four of the Eagles eight points.

Villanova responded with a 12-2 run to take a 62-58 advantage. Senior guard Jaliyah Green highlighted the run, scoring five points on a driving lay-up and a three-point field goal from the wing. Bascoe closed out the third quarter scoring, when she drained a pull-up 15-foot jumper with under two seconds on the clock to give the Wildcats a 62-60 lead after three.

The Wildcats held a 67-64 lead at the 5:18 mark of the fourth quarter, when Villanova scored five straight points to lead 72-64. The five points included a short jumper by Webber and a triple from Allen.

Following a lay-up by Eagle guard JaKayla Thompson that sliced the Villanova advantage to 72-66 with 4:16 to play, neither team was able to score for the next 2:15. Bascoe ended the scoreless stretch and gave the Wildcats a 74-66 lead with 15-foot jump shot with 2:02 on the clock.

After Boston College closed within six at 74-68, the Wildcats put the game away with two free throws from Bascoe.

In the win, Bascoe scored a game-high 24 points on 10-of-15 shooting, while Allen tied her career-high with 17 points. She was 5-of-11 from the field, 3-of-6 from three-point range and 4-of-5 from the foul line. Webber was the third Wildcat in double figures with 12 points.

Boston College was paced by Sidberry with 21 points and Samuel who finished with 16 points.

For the game, Villanova was 29-of-67 from the field (43.3%), 7-of-27 from three-point range (25.9%) and 11-of-16 from the foul line (68.8%), while the Eagles shot 40.0 percent from the floor (24-of-60), 40.0 percent from long distance (4-of-10) and 69.2 percent from the charity stripe (18-of-26). Villanova owned a 41-39 advantage on the backboards.