No. 21 Villanova going for another Big 5 win vs. Saint Joseph's

VILLANOVA, Pa. -- Villanova will be searching for its 25th consecutive Big 5 victory when it hosts rival Saint Joseph's Saturday afternoon in what is annually known as the "Holy War."

The No. 21-ranked Wildcats improved to 7-2 overall and 2-0 in the Big 5 with a 69-59 win over Temple on Wednesday. They have already defeated La Salle with one more game looming against Penn.

Villanova's last loss in the Big 5 came on Dec. 5, 2012 to Temple.

In their last game against Temple, the Wildcats actually trailed by five points with 9:44 remaining before rallying for the victory.

Villanova received an unexpected 15-point outburst from sophomore guard Jermaine Samuels in the second half to help defeat the Owls.

"I thought Jermaine sparked us defensively in the first half," Villanova head coach Jay Wright said. "That's why we put him back in during the second half. The shots were icing on the cake. He's a really good defensive player and one of our best rebounders."

Samuels was 4 of 6 from the field and 3 of 3 from beyond the arc. Entering the game, Samuels was just 4 of 20 from 3-point territory.

"I was just playing off of my teammates," Samuels said. "Within our offense if's always catch to shoot. I was open and just wanted to knock it down, to do it for my guys."

Wright holds a 13-4 career record against the Hawks since arriving on the Main Line in 2001.

Villanova hasn't lost to Saint Joseph's since falling 74-58 on Dec. 17, 2011.

The Hawks improved to 5-4 with their most recent 92-82 victory on the road against Princeton. Lamarr Kimble led the way with 22 points, all in the second half, while freshman Jared Bynum added 19 points and Taylor Funk had 16. Charlie Brown scored 11 points but left the game early in the second half with an injured ankle.

"We just went 40 minutes never trailing against a team that shot the ball better than they had all year," Saint Joseph's head coach Phil Martelli told reporters after the win over the Tigers. "It was a sloppy first half and seven turnovers is just unacceptable. In the second half we had three turnovers and scored 53 points against that kind of defense. We went the first half basically without Fresh (Kimble) because he didn't give us anything. But then one guy (Brown) goes down and Fresh answers the bell."

The Hawks won the game despite being without leading rebounder Pierfrancesco Oliva, who was out after suffering a slight concussion in the loss to Temple.

Yet the Hawks shot 55 percent from the field and hit 15 of 19 free throws to secure the win and move back over .500.

Brown leads the Hawks in scoring (22 points per game) but they have other formidable scorers such as Kimble. Earlier this season, Kimble scored a career-high tying 31 points in a win over Illinois-Chicago.

"Our best scorer on the team (Brown) was down so I thought I had to pick it up and give our guys some energy," Kimble told reporters.