College Basketball

Villanova Goes Wire-To-Wire In Win Over LaSalle

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David Malandra Jr
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David Malandra Jr Sports Editor

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Published19 Nov 2025

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Philadelphia, PA: Whenever you get any of the teams in the Philadelphia Big 5 facing each other, they are always a good time. That is what we saw on Wednesday night as the Villanova Wildcats took on the LaSalle Explorers in Big 5 Pod play from John E Glaser Arena on the campus of LaSalle University.

LaSalle came into the game off a loss to Penn State while Villanova made the trip to W Olney Ave off a win over Duquesne.

The game was shown on national TV on CBS Sports Network – on the call would be Phillies announcer Tom McCarthy & Steve Lappas.

What was at stake in tonight’s game? A win by Villanova would get them one step away from playing for the Big 5 Title. A win from LaSalle would shake things up and put more pressure on the Temple-Villanova game on December 1.

Lineup:

LaSalle:

Villanova:

How the game went:

Villanova would get off to a very fast start by scoring the game’s first 9 points before LaSalle got on the board & took a 13-4 lead into the 1st media timeout.

At one point, Villanova would have the lead to 14 at 32-18 with 4 minutes left.

During the 1st half, LaSalle would get two separate times that they would get the lead down to 10, with the last one being 34-24.

The Wikdcats answered the Explorers’ run with 3-pointers:

Villanova would take a 37-28 lead into halftime.

Everything was going right for the Wildcats, while the Explorers had a lot of missed chances and fell 9-0 to start the game.

The Explorers would come out and get the lead down to 9 with this nice no-look behind-the-back pass:

After that play, there was some hope in the crowd that LaSalle could make this a competitive game the rest of the way.

The Wildcats would wake up from the run that the Explorers had begun at the start of the 2nd half, though, and just put their foot down and take full control of this game.

Later on in the second half, Villanova’s Tyler Perkins would put on a sick move for the basket. At that point, the crowd inside the arena thought it was over:

As the final horn went off, Villanova would win this game wire-to-wire. They made a statement to the rest of the teams in the Big 5 that they are going to be a very tough matchup.

Postgame:

Villanova Coach Kevin Williard:

LaSalle Coach Darris Nichols:

 

Final Numbers:

 

What is next:
With the win, Villanova now has a showdown with Temple on Dec 1 to determine who gets out of Pod 1 for the Big 5 Title.  Before that happens, Villanova will take on Old Dominion on Tuesday night.

For LaSalle, they will get ready for a home battle with Lancaster Bible on Saturday.