Marquette Golden Eagles at Villanova Wildcats

Wright wins 414th game as No. 2 Nova tops Marquette

Wright knows greed and defections means those days are long gone.

But here's what Wright understands, as well: this reinvented Big East is pretty good at making its own memorable March memories.

Wright became the winningest coach in Villanova history with 414, and the No. 2 Wildcats opened defense of their Big East tournament championship in a 94-70 win over Marquette on Thursday night.

Wright improved to 414-165 since he took the job in 2001 and has led the Wildcats to the 2009 Final Four and 2016 national championship. He was tied with Al Severance, who went 413-201 from 1936-1961.

"I'm mostly proud to be the coach of Villanova, honestly," Wright said. "The wins and everything don't matter. I know I'll look back on it later."

They seem poised to make it a trilogy in Saturday's final.

"This is pretty cool," Wright said. "I'm excited where this league is right now."

Fresh off a blowout loss, even Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski had to admit the fact that Xavier and Villanova could both earn No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament was a boon for the league.

"Both teams have a great chance to win the national championship," he said.

The Wildcats blew this game open early in the second half against the seventh-seeded Golden Eagles (19-13). Brunson hit a 3 to open a 10-point lead and Booth nailed one to make it a 15-point game.

Then the Wildcats just got 3-point silly: Phil Booth, Eric Paschall, Omari Spellman, Brunson, Spellman again and Bridges all hit 3s on six straight scores to turn this into a rout and break out the "Let's Go Nova!" chants.

"After the game, everyone was talking about shooting," Brunson said. "Now that I look back at it, yeah, we were really shooting well, but that was the last thing on my mind. We really were just trying to focus on defending and rebounding and playing for each other."

Markus Howard scored 23 points and Andrew Rowsey had 22 for Marquette. Rowsey had tears running down his cheeks as he sat on the bench in the final minutes.

The Wildcats missed eight of their first 10 3-point attempts before they decided to attack the lane for easy buckets and get the juice going in their offense. Donte DiVincenzo hit a 3 and Bridges converted a four-point play for a five-point lead. Bridges was also fouled on a tough basket underneath for a three-point play. He scored 16 points in the half and flashed the skills that made him an All-Big East pick.

Then they became the latest team to run into the Villanova buzzsaw.

BIG PICTURE

Marquette: The Golden Eagles were doomed by a four-game losing streak in a six of eight streak that knocked them out of NCAA contention.

"I think our team is capable of winning games in the NCAA tournament," Wojciechowski said.

Villanova: Wright led the Wildcats, who won the 1985 national title under his mentor Rollie Massimino, to their greatest run of success in program history. They've won at least 32 games each of the previous three seasons and he's led them to the NCAAs all but one year (2012) since 2005. Hired in 2001 to replace Steve Lappas, Wright took the Wildcats to unprecedented success

UP NEXT

Marquette will likely miss the NCAA tournament and hope for a second-tier postseason bid.

The Wildcats swept Seton Hall and went 1-1 vs. Butler.

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