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Penn stuns Philly rival Villanova

Antonio Woods (shown) and AJ Brodeur scored 16 points each Tuesday to lead Pennsylvania to a 78-75 victory over No. 17 Villanova at the Palestra in Philadelphia. It was the Quakers’ first victory over the Wildcats since 2002.
Antonio Woods (shown) and AJ Brodeur scored 16 points each Tuesday to lead Pennsylvania to a 78-75 victory over No. 17 Villanova at the Palestra in Philadelphia. It was the Quakers’ first victory over the Wildcats since 2002.

PHILADELPHIA -- AJ Brodeur and Antonio Woods each scored 16 points as Pennsylvania beat No. 17 Villanova 78-75 on Tuesday night, the Quakers' first victory over the Wildcats since 2002.

Penn fans stormed the court after Villanova's Phil Booth missed the tying three-point attempt. The national champion Wildcats had won a city-record 25 consecutive games against Big 5 rivals Temple, Saint Joseph's, La Salle and the Quakers.

Penn's student section started rocking the bleachers with minutes left, and the Quakers avoided a late scare and delivered the latest memorable moment at the Palestra.

Penn Coach Steve Donahue, who led Cornell to the Sweet 16 in 2010, may have another blooming Ivy League power. Penn last beat Villanova at the Palestra on Dec. 5, 2001, and hadn't beat them at all since Dec. 10, 2002.

"Just the look, when you come out of the locker room and it's a sea of red," Donahue said. "I'm glad we were able to reward them."

The Wildcats (8-3) hadn't lost a city series game since dropping a 76-61 decision to Temple on Dec. 5, 2012.

Donahue slapped hands with fans that lingered on the court and fans tossed streamers and went wild as they topped the champs.

Villanova Coach Jay Wright calmly tugged at his suit and looked at the scoreboard that read 75-69 as the Wildcats went into a timeout needing a hoops miracle to pull this one off. They nearly got one -- Booth hit a fall-away three-pointer that that pulled them to 75-72 and another with 1.3 seconds to go that made it 78-75.

Woods sailed an in-bounds pass wildly out of bounds and Villanova had one last shot.

Booth, a senior guard with two national championships, missed his last one and the Penn party was on.

"It was nice while it lasted," Wright said. "We learn from it. It was fun to be a part of it."

Michael Wang added 14 points for Penn (9-2).

Collin Gillespie scored 21 points and Booth finished with 18 for Villanova.

The Wildcats have been solid but may have been outside the AP Top 25 without its championship pedigree. They fell out of the poll for a week on the heels of consecutive home losses to Michigan and Furman. But they had won six consecutive and fattened their record in the city series they made their own.

Bryce Washington hit two three-pointers and the Quakers raced to a 14-2 lead over the rattled Wildcats.

The Wildcats went on a 15-0 run. Wang and Woods responded and buried consecutive three-pointers to help Penn lead 32-28 at the break.

The Wildcats missed their first six free throws of the second half and Jermaine Samuels and Joe Cremo each had four fouls just 5 minutes into the second as Villanova fell behind by 10 points.

NO. 23 FURMAN 77, CHARLESTON SOUTHERN 69

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- No. 23 Furman (11-0) used a late run to pull away from Charleston Southern (4-5) in its first home game as a Top 25 team.

Noah Gurley scored 17 points, and Alex Hunter and Andrew Brown had 16 points apiece to lead Furman in a game where leading scorer Jordan Lyons had zero points.

Charleston Southern trailed 54-52 on Dontrell Shuler's layup with less than 10 minutes left. After that, the Paladins went on a 14-4 run. Tre Clark had four points during the surge and when Gurley nailed a three-pointer with 5:51 to go, Furman was up 68-56.

Matt Rafferty had 14 points and 14 rebounds for Furman.

Deontaye Buskey and Duncan LeXander had 13 points each for Charleston Southern.

Sports on 12/12/2018

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