PHILADELPHIA _ Wednesday was a throwback kind of night at Villanova.
The fourth-ranked Wildcats hosted Penn. But the game wasn't held at the Pavilion, which is being renovated this season. Instead the venue was the nearby Jake Nevin Field House, which was once called the Cat House. They hadn't played in it since January 1986. And they'd never played a Big Five game there. The rest of their home games will be at the Wells Fargo Center.
Named after the beloved longtime trainer, the building opened in 1931, which makes it only four years younger than the Palestra. In this intimate setting, the crowd might have been louder than either of those places.
Yes, the Wildcats wore their uniforms from 1985, when Rollie Massimino's team magically won the first of the program's bookend national titles. And Daddy Mass, who passed away in late August, was honored at halftime. But some things remain constant.
The Wildcats moved to 7-0 with a 90-62 win. It was their 19th straight Big Five victory. And, for the 17th straight time, they won by double digits. They also won their 27th in a row in November.
It was 46-28 at halftime. And Penn hadn't played that badly. It was a six-point game after nine minutes. And just like that it wasn't. Villanova can do that, to any number of opponents.
So what else is new? The Wildcats haven't lost to Penn since 2002.
Villanova, which just won the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas, had five players score at least 12 points. Jalen Brunson had 17, on 6-for-7 shooting. The Wildcats made 56.7 percent from the field, 50 percent from the arc.
The largest lead was 30, with 6 { minutes left.
Penn, which was coming off a four-overtime win at Monmouth on Saturday, did get a dozen layups, which will give Jay Wright something to point out to his guys. AJ Brodeur topped the Quakers with 15 points. Darnell Foreman had 13.
The Wildcats will be at St. Joseph's on Saturday. Then they get No. 15 Gonzaga, the defending national runner-up, in New York on Tuesday, followed by La Salle at home and Temple, the last Big Five team to beat them, on North Broad Street.
Penn (5-4) plays its next three on the road: at Howard on Monday, at Lafayette two nights later and at Dayton on Dec. 9. After that the Quakers are off until after Christmas.
