Coming off an eight-point loss to No. 21 Marquette on Wednesday night, the women's basketball team will look to rebound and record their second Big East win. The Pirates will play host to Villanova, 9-16, on Feb. 19 in the Walsh Gymnasium. The Pirates and Wildcats are competing to climb out of the Big East basement, as both teams' sole conference wins came against Cincinnati in the past week. Also, the records of these two teams are very similar with the Pirates being 8-17. Despite these statistics seemingly building up to a very even matchup, head coach Anne Donovan believes this is a very uncomfortable game for her team. "They like to slow down the game, they don't score a lot of points but their style is one that we are not best at defending," Donovan said. Donovan says that the teams with fewer conference wins bring their intensity against each other in hopes of beating them out. The Pirates beat the Wildcats in their last matchup in the 2009-2010 season, 53-49. The team then takes on No. 2 UConn, 27-1, on their home court in Hartford, Conn., on Feb. 22. The Huskies are led by senior forward Maya Moore, who recently broke the all-time Big East scoring record with 27 points in UConn's win over No. 12 Oklahoma. "We'll go up there knowing it's a big challenge but it will make us better," Donovan said. UConn has not had many games with single-digit winning margins. "They [UConn] have just dominated all of the opponents with very few exceptions," Donovan said. UConn defeated the Pirates last season, 91-24. Stephanie Vedral can be reached at stephanie.vedral@student.shu.edu.
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