VILLANOVA, Pa. – Villanova (16-5 overall, 7-3 BIG EAST) kicks off a busy month of February action when it hosts Seton Hall (16-6 overall, 6-5 BIG EAST) in a BIG EAST battle Wednesday night at Finneran Pavilion.
 
Tipoff is set for 6:30 p.m. The game will be streamed on Peacock with John Fanta and Tarik Turner on the call. Ryan Fannon and Whitey Rigsby will have the audio broadcast on the Villanova Sports Radio Network (Fox Sports Radio Philadelphia, iHeart App, SiriusXM channel 380 and the TuneIn App).
 
A limited number of tickets are available by clicking on the link at the top of this story.
 
The Wildcats returned from their bye on Friday night to outlast Providence 87-73. Graduate transfer guard Devin Askew led the way with 20 points, three assists and two steals. A native of Sacramento, Cal., the 6-5 guard has averaged 15.6 points per game over Villanova's last six contests.
 
"I've got a great coach," said Askew of Kevin Willard. "He tells me to let it fly."
 
Willard pointed to the right knee sprain that derailed Askew just as the Wildcats were gearing up for the 2025-26 campaign.
 
"He had a really bad injury so that he missed two months," stated Willard. "When you miss two months and you come in and try to play high-level basketball, (it's tough). Kids are kids. They're going to try to do what they always do. What I'm trying to get him to do is to just play off of his strengths.
 
"I think he's just starting to realize how much pressure he can put on defenses."
 
Villanova defeated Seton Hall 64-56 in its BIG EAST opener on Dec. 23 at the Prudential Center. The Pirates, picked 11^th in the league's preseason poll, have far exceeded expectations this season under head coach Shaheen Holloway, who once served as a Willard assistant in the early portion of Willard's 12-year tenure in South Orange.
 
The Pirates have the fourth best advanced metrics ranking in the BIG EAST at No. 49. Only Connecticut (No. 10), St. John's (No. 21) and Villanova (No. 34) are listed above them. The Hall's NCAA NET ranking also stands at No. 49 (the Wildcats were at No. 33 on Tuesday morning).
 
As the calendar turns to February, one area of growth for the Wildcats has been on the defensive end of the floor. Villanova ranks third in Scoring Defense in BIG EAST games (70.5 ppg) and is sixth in Field Goal Percentage Defense (.440). It is also third in 3-Point Field Goal Percentage Defense (.309), an area that sometimes vexed it early in the season as an essentially new roster adapted to the style of its new coaching staff.
"These guys are working hard at it," Willard said of the defense. "Our secondary defense still needs a lot of work. There are times we have to protect Duke with the number of minutes he's getting. We're getting confused about some simple things that is more of my fault. Sometimes I get a little more complicated than I probably should be with these guys.
 
"But these guys are working hard at it, trying to figure it out."
 
A couple of Wildcats are approaching career milestones as the Wildcats begin the second month of 2026. Tyler Perkins now has 893 points as a college player, including his one season at Penn. Duke Brennan collected his 800^th career rebound in the win over the Friars' (803) and is also closing in on the 1,000-point plateau (883) in his career at Arizona State, Grand Canyon and Villanova.
 
This is the first of eight games in the 28 days of February. The Wildcats return to the road on Saturday as they meet Georgetown in Washington, D.C. at noon (TNT and TruTV).