Villanova 76 – BC 70

VILLANOVA – Overrated underachievers no more. Irrelevant relics no more. For the first time in years, Villanova basketball matters again. The Wildcats are players again. Believe it.

No. 3 Boston College sure believes, after 24th-ranked Villanova posted a nearly wire-to-wire 76-70 win that marked their second victory this breakthrough season against a Top 5 club, and ended with the students storming the court at the Pavilion, suddenly a hoops hotbed again.

The sight of freshman Kyle Lowry, who started for injured Mike Nardi, dribbling out the clock while BC vainly tried to foul was fitting. The athletic Wildcats had dribbled circles around the slow-footed Eagles all night.

Newark’s Randy Foye had a game-high 23 points, including a huge jumper for a 67-64 lead with 3:45 left that snapped a 9:29 drought, and another pullup for a five-point lead in the final minute that sealed it.

Brooklyn’s Curtis Sumpter had 20 points, 18 in the first half but just two in the second after tweaking his knee. And ‘Nova repeatedly beat BC off the dribble to earn a stunning 41 foul shots.

“I knew I could get to the basket. When [Sean Williams] stepped up, it was just what kind of play was I going to make? I just shot the ball and it went in,” said Foye. “This is big for our psyche. These are the types of teams we’re going to play in the tournament, and we know we can beat them.”

Villanova (18-6, 8-5 Big East) has been beating these types of teams. Since blowing a six-point lead with 1:52 to play up in Chestnut Hill on Jan. 19, the Wildcats have won nine of 11, some of them huge.

The next game, they emasculated then-No. 2 Kansas 83-62, and they rallied to beat Pittsburgh last Sunday. Last night, they were a five-point favorite against BC (22-2, 11-2) and still looked better than that.

“This year, we can close games out. At their place, it came down to the wire and we didn’t finish. [Last night] we finished,” said Sumpter, who’s out of Bishop Loughlin. “We think we can play with the best all the time. We don’t feel it’s an upset. We’re one of the best teams in the country as well.”

Granted, they hardly run any offensive sets, but BC couldn’t guard them. ‘Nova took a 53-40 lead, and it was still a dozen at 61-49 with 12:27 left before an 11-1 run, capped by Steve Hailey’s left-wing 3-pointer, cut it to 62-60 with 6:23 left.

When it was 67-66, Foye and Jason Fraser sandwiched four straight foul shots around a miss by BC’s Craig Smith to push it to 71-66 with 2:20 left. Foye’s last-minute hanging jumper to make it 73-68 was the icing on the cake.