NCAA Basketball: Gonzaga’s comeback, Villanova’s upset and other takeaways

Coach Neptune falls in first road game at Villanova

New head coach Kyle Neptune won his first game with the Wildcats earlier in the week, beating La Salle by 13 points. But Friday’s “Big 5” matchup took them onto Temple’s court, a team that recently lost to Wagner to open its own season. It was a bad loss for the Owls, who returned a 20+ ppg scorer in Khalif Battle and have aspirations of competing in the AAC.

But as low as Monday’s loss was, Temple was able to rebound in a nice way, upsetting Villanova, 68-64. That gave the Wildcats its first loss in these matchups since 2018 against Penn. If there was ever a time to face the ranked program, it was now. They have a new head coach and are missing two starters and key players in Justin Moore and five-star freshman wing, Cam Whitmore. Caleb Daniels and Eric Dixon had 19 and 18 points respectfully but clearly needed more.

On Temple’s side, Battle had 21 points off the bench, while Damian Dunn had a game-high 22 points on 8/14 shooting from the field. It wasn’t the greatest offensive performance for the team, shooting 36% from the field or 5/23 from three-point range. This week has shown that the Owls are capable of giving a team like Memphis or Cincinnati a game in AAC play, but also could lose to East Carolina or South Florida as well.