MILWAUKEE -- Jay Wright admitted he wasn’t going to bring it up.
The Villanova coach didn’t want his message to be negative after his No. 1 Wildcats rebounded from a rare loss to seize back control of the Big East conference race.
But despite an 89-79 victory over Marquette on Saturday (see Instant Replay), Villanova (25-4, 14-2 Big East) knows it has issues to shore up if it is going to make a deep run in March.
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Wright said. “I’m very disappointed in our defense. Very disappointed. It wasn’t good against Xavier either.
“We’ve kind of lost that. We have to get back to it.”
Villanova came into this week as one of the nation’s top defensive teams, allowing just 61.5 points per game and having held seven consecutive opponents under 70 points.
The Wildcats slipped to 13th in the country in opponent scoring average after giving up 90 points in Wednesday’s loss to No. 5 Xavier. Villanova’s defensive struggles continued Saturday, as Marquette scored 79 points, including 25 points in transition.
“Other guys have been driving by us at will,” Wright said. “Both games, taking the ball and dribbling past us at will, two games in a row. We'll get back to work and address that.”
A strong offensive showing in which six players scored at least eight points carried Villanova against Marquette.
However, the Wildcats feel they can clean things up on that end of the court as well.
Turnovers had been an issue for Villanova during a stretch in late January and early February, but the Wildcats had committed 10 or fewer miscues in each of their last three games.
But against Marquette, Villanova coughed the ball up 17 times, its second-highest turnover total of the season.
The Golden Eagles were able to stay in the game thanks to 10 first-half turnovers by the Wildcats, including three traveling violations in the first three minutes of the game.
“We just have to be more solid,” senior forward Daniel Ochefu said. “Guys are giving up opportunities where they could score. They are looking for an extra pass.
“I love sharing the ball, but when you have an opportunity to score you have to take it. Normally when you are open the other guys are guarded. That’s what leads to turnovers.”
Marquette is second among Big East teams in turnovers forced per game at 14.25. The Golden Eagles also average a conference-best 7.7 steals per game.
“It would seem that we would be disappointed in how sloppy we played and the turnovers but Marquette is the best in our league at turning people over,” Wright said. “(Marquette coach Steve Wojciechowski) has his young guys playing really hard. They're defending, they're scrappy.
“You can have a great defensive field-goal percentage or you can create turnovers and your defensive field-goal percentage doesn't look that good. But those turnovers get you buckets. That's what they do a great job of. We shot 57 percent, but those turnovers, we had 17, every time we turned it over, they scored. That was a big part of the game.”
Because it is one of the few teams in the country with the tools necessary to win a national championship, Villanova can be nitpicky.
The fact of the matter is the Wildcats controlled Saturday’s game from the start against a hungry team playing in its own raucous building.
“That’s the beauty of this team,” Ochefu said. “We still have so much room to get better. We have a lot of young guys starting to come into their own. We still have a ways to go. If we continue to get better we can do some great things this year.”
With Sunday's win, Villanova holds a one-game lead over Xavier in the Big East as both schools still have two regular-season games left to play.
There's still plenty to play for.