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Lauren Burford led Villanova behind the arc on Sunday afternoon with four made three pointers as the team went 13-28 from long distance en route to a 68-48 win over Marquette women's basketball.
The Wildcats took ten threes in the first nine minutes of the game, and made six of them. That was the sum total of all of their points through that time, and they led 18-6. Things just got worse for Marquette from there, as Villanova hit four of seven for the rest of the first half behind the arc and a surprisingly lousy 4-12 inside the arc before intermission to take a 43-18 lead at the half.
I'd put a lot of effort into attempting to recount what was going on here but really, what's the point? An absurd number of shots fell for VU in the first half and even if Marquette hadn't shot the ball poorly (7-22), they still would have been getting run out of the gym. Villanova cooled way off in the second half, shooting only 3-11 from three and 9-26 overall, but Marquette doesn't have the kind of firepower on their roster to climb back into that kind of game. Villanova did push the lead as high as 33 at one point in the second half, so really, I suppose it's a bit of an accomplishment that MU managed to drag it back to just 20 points over the final 10:27 of the game.
Kenisha Bell and Cristina Bigica were not cursed by whatever weird affliction had the rest of the team in its thrall, as they both scored 16 points while shooting a combined 13-24, and they tied for the team lead in rebounds with six as well. Villanova was led by 12 points from Burford, all on her four made three pointers. All told, six different Wildcats scored at least five points in the win, and nine players played at least 13 minutes.
Up Next: Anything. Literally anything, please. ....... Wait, DePaul at home is next? Crap, that's not super. The Blue Demons are 10-5 overall and 2-1 after splitting with Villanova and Georgetown over the weekend. DePaul was ranked #25 in the AP Poll last week, but the loss to Nova will probably cost them their ranking.