Jhamir Brickus & Eric Dixon leads Villanova to win over Rider on Thanksgiving Eve

Radnor PA: The Entire nation is getting ready for the Thanksgiving holiday, College Basketball is in full gear and the Villanova Wildcats are looking to return to their winning ways as they battle against Rider Broncos from Finneran Pavilion.

The Wildcats came into the game with a 3-4 record and off a tough loss to Maryland while Rider made their way to the Main Line with a 4-2 record and off a win over Bucknell.

Villanova Great Kris Jenkins would be on the call of the game along with the Voice of the Big East in John Fanta.

Lineup:

pic.twitter.com/Jl7nZvpNYL

— Villanova MBB (@NovaMBB) November 27, 2024

How the game went:
In the first half, both Villanova & Rider would come out with slow starts and Rider got the scoring started with 3 pointer before Villanova got on the board from Eric Dixon & there were a couple of times in the first half when the Broncos would keep this game very close & at one point they would have the Wildcats lead down to 3 at 23-20 with 4:37 left in the half, Villanova would wake up and take advantage of the mistakes that Rider was doing & the Broncos would end the 1st half with a 4-minute scoring drought & the Wildcats would take a 36-20 lead into halftime.

Going into the second half, could Rider attempt to get back into the game & the answer would be NO as the Wildcats would pick up where they left off in the first half.  Villanova would have the lead as high as 29 on 3 separate times with the last one being 70-41 on a basket from Kris Parker with 4:03 left. Jhamir Brickus would have a good shooting night for the Wildcats as he would finish with 15 points on 5-7 from 3 PT range.

A very cool thing happened in the second half as freshman Aleksandar Gavalyugov entered the game & he scored his first college points & that made it 68-39 with 4:55 left in 2nd half.

Whenever Vilanova gets their 3-pointers to start falling, most games you know that the Wildcats would win & in this game tonight they would make 15 three-pointers.

Villanova would cruise to a 72-48 win & with this win, they are now at .500 on the season

Postgame

Villanova Coach Kyle Neptune:

Villanova Jhamir Brickus:

#Villanova’s Jhamir Brickus on his 15-point performance tonight and @NovaMBB’s win over Rider: https://t.co/UqIQdOKGub pic.twitter.com/jCJe8LMzNS

— David Szczepanski (@WXVUDavidS) November 28, 2024

Final Numbers:

What is Next:
With the win, Villanova is at 4-4 on the season & their next game is December 3 against  Cincinnati while Rider falls to 4-3 on the season & they will attempt to bounce back from this game after they battle Delaware on November 30.