The Tribune

By AARON BEARD, AP Basketball Writer

PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas (AP) — Villanova coach Jay Wright loves playing in November tournaments, from the chance to learn how his team responds to early challenges and experiment with which lineups work best.

Of course, it helps that the fifth-ranked Wildcats keep winning trophies, too.

Mikal Bridges scored 18 points and Villanova pulled away down the stretch to beat Northern Iowa 64-50 in Friday's Battle 4 Atlantis championship game, marking the fifth straight season the Wildcats have won a November tournament.

Jalen Brunson added 16 points and was named the tournament's most valuable player for Villanova (6-0), which has 17 straight wins in these early season tournaments — including a run to the 2013 Atlantis championship here in the Bahamas. They've won the 2014 Legends Classic, the 2015 NIT Season Tip-Off and the 2016 Charleston Classic since.

"There's a challenge coming here," Wright said. "Everything's taken care of for you here. You're treated like a king. But this is paradise. There's a lot of temptations here. And if you get caught up in that and that's more important to you than being a good basketball and a good teammate, that can affect you.

"These guys and the guys we've had over the years, they're really good basketball players. They're intelligent and they know this is an opportunity to play great competition — and they take it very seriously."

The Wildcats led most of the way then used an 8-0 run in the final 4 minutes to turn away the Panthers (5-2) for their third win in as many days.

"It gives us great confidence right now, knowing that we've played pretty well as a team," Bridges said. "But it can also hurt if you get too satisfied with this and get complacent."

Juwan McCloud scored 13 points to lead the Panthers, who shot 42 percent and controlled the boards. But Northern Iowa made just 6 of 23 3-pointers and failed to get to the free-throw line in a game that had just 20 total fouls.

"We just didn't have quite enough offense today," Northern Iowa coach Ben Jacobson said. "I love this team. And we're going to get better. And we're going to be right there when it matters."