Poor third dooms ‘Nova against Dutch nat’l team

Villanova was in striking distance at half, but shortly after the third quarter started, found itself in a hole it couldnt crawl out of in its 75-63 loss to the Netherlands national team on Saturday.

The Wildcats were down by just six at halftime, but found themselves on the wrong end of a 7-0 run and never cut the lead back down to single digits.

Villanova is now 1-3 against senior nationals teams on their current trip.

They came out in the second half and really picked up the defensive pressure, Villanova head coach Jay Wright said. I thought we may have been a little tired on our fourth game in five nights but they were good. Darrun Hilliard is a freshman in that situation and it was tough for him at times. But hes had some great games for us. I also thought we came back and played well in the fourth quarter but that run was too tough for us to overcome.

Malik Wayns and Mouphtaou Yarou led the Wildcats with 15 points apiece and were the only two Nova players in double figures.

The Wildcats were outscored 21-8 in the decisive third quarter.

We couldnt score in the third and it wasnt just thatwe were turning the ball over and giving up easy baskets, Wright said. Actually, we probably played as well defensively as we have on this trip. Their defense, though, was tremendous. They were too good of a team for us to turn them over. Mouph and Markus did a great job of battling their big guys. Our guards just could not get us into offense and you have to give their guards credit because they trapped and pressured the ball extremely well.