No. 3 Villanova Focusing On Wednesday Night Match-Up With Creighton
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- The Villanova Wildcats continue to be one of the nation's top college basketball teams.
On Sunday, Villanova battled through some early shooting woes to beat St. John's at Madison Square Garden, 68-53. The victory improved the Wildcats to 18-3 overall and they are now 8-1 in the Big East. Next up will be a conference match-up with the Creighton Blue Jays on Wednesday night.
The Wildcats won on Sunday despite not having the services of senior big man Daniel Ochefu. He missed the game with a concussion. Head coach Jay Wright talked about his status going forward.
"Still up in the air," Wright told KYW Newsradio. "The concussion protocol is a system that you have to go through, so he's at the beginning stages of that and you get tested each day. We're probably not going to have him for Creighton, but hopefully get him back as soon as possible after that."
LISTEN: Jay Wright discusses No. 3 Villanova and their match up with Creighton with KYW's Matt Leon:
The Wildcats moved up in both polls this week, jumping from #6 to #3 in the AP Top 25 poll and from #6 to #4 in the Coaches Poll. This is rarefied air for any program, but Wright says they don't really pay it any attention.
"It really doesn't mean anything at all," Wright said. "I know it does for our fans and for our university, which is great, it's a big part of college basketball. But we're coming off a game, we didn't play that well. The only thing that matters to us is we've got to get prepared for Creighton and we've got to play a little bit better."
The Blue Jays are 14-8 this season and they sit at 5-4 in the Big East heading into Wednesday.
"Really scary team," Wright said. "They play really fast."
One Creighton player with Philadelphia roots really catches Wright's eye.
"They've got (junior Maurice) Watson," Wright said. "He is as good as anybody in the country at the point guard position. Been playing great for them. We've got to try to contain him, but also keep them from really drilling threes. They are an outstanding three-point shooting team."
The Blue Jays shoot 37% from three.
Watson, who went to Boys' Latin High School, leads the team in scoring at 14.1 points a game and he has also dished out a team leading 143 assists.
Wednesday night's game at the Pavilion will tip at 8:00pm.
You can follow Matt on twitter @mattleonkyw.
