Villanova Preview: Can the Wildcats Control the Paint Again?

Villanova Men’s Basketball will play their penultimate home game of the 2025-26 season on Wednesday, Feb. 25, hosting the Butler Bulldogs at 7 p.m.

The Wildcats (21-6, 12-4 Big East) lost their last game to No. 6 UConn, snapping a six game winning streak that pushed them into contention for a No. 6 seed once the NCAA Tournament begins. Currently holding the No. 31 spot in the NET rankings and receiving the 28th-most AP Poll votes of any team in Division I, Villanova has a tournament bid and the Big East’s No. 3 seed locked up… but without many quality wins, they need to take care of business over the final two weeks of the regular season to improve their standing once the Big Dance begins.

Butler holds the No. 78 spot in the NET, making this a Quadrant 3 matchup that could improve to Quad 2 if the Bulldogs move into the top 75. Villanova won the first matchup 85-67 in Indianapolis, riding 18 points from Bryce Lindsay, 17 points from Matt Hodge and a Duke Brennan double-double to victory. They enter as a 10.5 point home favorite according to DraftKings Sportsbook, with the over/under set at 146.5 and money line odds of -600; The Wildcats take home the win in 79.9 percent of ESPN Analytics simulations.

Bulldogs’ junior point guard Finley Bizjack handled most of the scoring in the first matchup, scoring 18 points on 6-of-16 shooting. 6-foot-7 senior Michael Ajayi (12 points, 12 rebounds) was the only other Butler player to finish in double digits as Villanova erupted for 55 points in the second half, overcoming a nine point deficit.

FS1 holds the telecasting rights to this matchup.

Scouting the Bulldogs

Butler will play without freshman guard Azavier Robinson, whose season ended early due to a wrist injury. Head coach Thad Matta opts for Efeosa Oliogu-Elabor in Robinson’s absence, a 6-foot-6 forward who gives the Bulldogs a size advantage. Each of their starters stands 6-foot-4 or higher, and Bizjack is the only one shorter than 6-foot-6.

Villanova has struggled against teams with length — and, indeed, Butler had them on the ropes for much of the previous matchup — so Oliogu-Elabor’s integration into the lineup could necessitate an adjustment from the Wildcats. Butler’s other starters are center Drayton Jones and guard Jamie Kaiser Jr., their active leader in steals with 1.3 per game. Ajayi (16.0 PPG) leads the team in rebounds (11.1 per game), assists (3.2 per game) and blocks (1.0 per game); Bizjack takes the cake in scoring (17.5 PPG), the only other Bulldog to average in double figures.

The Bulldogs won 36-30 on the glass the first time around, taking 27 of 63 shots from beyond the arc as they tried to attack Villanova’s shaky three-point defense. They made just 22 percent of their triples (compared with 50 percent of their shots from two), so they could try to play to their strengths instead of the Wildcats’ weaknesses, much like Georgetown did in their Feb. 7 rematch.

Scouting Villanova

Villanova also looks much different from the previous matchup. Lindsay (12.2 PPG) is working his way through a six week shooting slump that began soon after the Butler game, hitting double figures for the first time in more than two weeks when he dropped 15 against Xavier on Feb. 17.

Tyler Perkins (13.8 PPG) is the Wildcats’ new scoring leader and provides a plus presence on both sides of the court. True freshman point guard Acaden Lewis (12.6 PPG, 5.3 assists per game, 2.1 steals per game) has also acclimated to Big East play, picking up the second-most assists and third-most steals in the conference.

Hodge (9.5 PPG), a 6-foot-8 wing who takes two-thirds of his shots from three, can also rotate into the paint in smaller lineups. His 0.6 blocks lead the team, and, while he’s a streaky shooter, he made a team-high four of six triples during the first Butler game. Brennan, a double-double machine, ranks ninth in the nation with 10.4 boards per game. Sixth man Devin Askew (22.3 minutes per game, 9.5 PPG) provides a dependable safety valve, while guard Malachi Palmer and center Braden Pierce have both earned an uptick in minutes.

After attacking from three to limited success in the first half of their game at Butler, Villanova drove into the paint with gusto, notching 46 points in the paint and making an astronomical 67.6 percent of shots from two-point range on the night. If they can follow that game plan once again, they’ll be well on their way to victory, but the Bulldogs’ new emphasis on size could change that.