PHILADELPHIA _ Phil Booth was having one of his poorest shooting games of the season Sunday when 14th-ranked Villanova was struggling with Georgetown, but he found his stroke just in the nick of time.
Booth, who made two of his first 12 shots and did not have one 3-point basket, broke through for eight points in a late 15-2 run that carried the Wildcats to a 77-65 victory over the Hoyas at Wells Fargo Center, their 10th consecutive win.
The two teams were tied at 53 when Georgetown's James Akinjo drained a three-pointer with 7 minutes, 23 seconds to play. Booth followed with a layup and knocked down his first three of the game on the very next possession.
Booth later hit another 3-point basket at the 3:52 mark to give Villanova its largest lead to that point, 66-55, and the Wildcats (18-4, 9-0 Big East) maintained at least an eight-point margin the rest of the way.
The Hoyas (14-8, 4-5) went 5:45 without a field goal. For the game, they shot 33.8 percent.
Collin Gillespie had six of Villanova's nine three-point baskets and established a career high with 30 points while Eric Paschall added 24. Booth finished with 14.
A most unusual statistic for the Wildcats came from sophomore forward Jermaine Samuels, who had 15 of his career-high 16 rebounds before he took his first shot of the game _ a successful dunk _ with 1:02 to play.
Akinjo led Georgetown with 19 points. Senior center Jesse Govan, the team's leading scorer with a 19.4-point average, did not score in 13 minutes, missing all nine of his attempts from the field, and fouled out with 4:53 remaining.
The Hoyas, who lost both meetings to Villanova last season by a combined 56 points, played the Wildcats tough throughout and hung around for much of the second half. They did a particularly effective job on Booth, whose only two baskets in the first 33 minutes of the game came on layups.
Paschall scored 10 of the Wildcats' first 13 points in the second half for a 46-43 advantage but Georgetown pulled into a tie 4 { minutes later when Josh LeBlanc hit a basket and a free throw for a 50-50 tie at the 8:14 mark.
Gillespie and Akinjo exchanged 3-point baskets for a 53-53 before the Wildcats took control.
Georgetown led 34-33 at the end of a first half in which both teams shot relatively poorly _ the Wildcats at 35.5 percent, the Hoyas 34.4 percent. Villanova made just 4 of 16 three-point tries with Phil Booth going 0-for-4.
The most reliable shooter on the court for 'Nova was Gillespie, who poured in four threes and led all scorers at the half with 15 points. Paschall added 11 but Booth shot just 1 of 7 for two points and sat for more than seven minutes after picking up his second personal foul.
The Hoyas were led by Akinjo with eight points. Govan, their leading scorer with a 19.4-point average, did not score in the first half. He picked up two fouls in the first 4:19 and went to the bench, then picked up his third personal a little more than two minutes after re-entering the game.
The Wildcats made 8 of their first 15 shots and rushed out to a lead that got as high as seven, 22-15, midway through the period. They took a 24-17 lead on Gillespie's free throw with 7:47 left but the Hoyas followed with an 11-1 run that included 3-point baskets by Jamorko Pickett and Jahvon Blair and grabbed a 28-25 lead with 4:44 left.
Gillespie scored seven of the Wildcats' next eight points to give his team the lead once again at 33-30 with 1:30 to play, but the Hoyas got a free throw from Kaleb Johnson and a three at the buzzer from Akinjo to go into the locker room with a one-point lead.
