Matt Hodge sat out last season as Villanova stumbled to its third straight season without an NCAA Tournament appearance.
After leading the Wildcats in scoring for the first time, Hodge hopes to help Villanova (4-1) earn a fifth straight win when it hosts Old Dominion on Tuesday night.
A top recruit from Belmar, N.J, Hodge was denied an eligibility waiver last season when the Wildcats finished their third season under coach Kyle Neptune with a 21-15 record. He stayed when Kevin Willard was hired and his 17 points helped the Wildcats in their wire-to-wire 70-55 win at La Salle on Wednesday.
Hodge debuted by shooting 3-of-11 from the floor in a five-point loss to BYU but was 22-for-37 from the field in his past four games, including a 5-of-11 showing from 3-point range in the past two games.
“I think he’s getting a little bit more comfortable with how we’re trying to play, and also being back, it’s much different from practice,” Willard said. “He’s worked really hard to put himself in this position.”
Hodge’s best showing occurred during Bryce Lindsay’s quietest. Lindsay is Villanova’s top scorer at 20.4 points per game but was held to 10 against La Salle after scoring 92 points over the first four games.
Besides Hodge’s best game, the Wildcats got another big rebounding showing from Duke Brennan, who is grabbing 14.4 boards per game. Brennan logged 13 rebounds Wednesday for his fifth straight double-digit rebounding game to start his stint at Villanova after he had 12 such games last season for Grand Canyon.
Old Dominion (3-4) is hoping its second game against a Big East opponent goes better than its 99-69 loss at Xavier last Tuesday.
The Monarchs bounced back with an 88-56 rout of Morgan State on Friday but were unable to complete a comeback from a 10-point deficit and lost 75-71 at Drexel on Sunday.
“It’s a game that we’re looking forward to,” Monarchs coach Mike Jones said. “We came up (to the Philadelphia area) to play two. We didn’t get the first one, so we’re going to go to battle to try and get one on Tuesday against a very good basketball team.”
Old Dominion lost for the third time in four games after holding a three-point lead with under five minutes left following its double-digit deficit in the first half.
Jordan Battle scored 21 points and Robert Davis Jr. added 15, but the Monarchs shot 9-of-16 from the free-throw stripe.
–Field Level Media
