Villanova woke up Saturday trailing Xavier by a game in the loss column of the Big East standings with only five contests remaining -- one of which was against the Musketeers at Cintas Center. So, for reasons that should be obvious, the Wildcats' streak of consecutive Big East regular-season titles had never been more in jeopardy. Technically, they did not need to win Saturday night at Xavier to remain in contention for a fifth straight Big East title. But in reality, they did.

So they did.

And they did so convincingly.

Villanova made 10 first-half 3-pointers, led by as many as 19 points, endured a second-half comeback attempt and then pulled away late to record a 95-79 victory before a capacity crowd rooting against them to no avail. So now No. 3 Villanova and No. 4 Xavier each has 24 wins on the season and three Big East losses. And considering both will be favored in their remaining regular-season games, a first-place tie that would extend Villanova's streak of league titles to five is suddenly very possible, if not likely.

And I guess we should've seen this coming.

It was a Villanova-Xavier game, after all. And this is exactly how Villanova-Xavier games almost always go -- evidence being that the Wildcats have now won 10 of the 11 meetings between the schools since Xavier joined the Big East in advance of the 2013-14 season, and the average margin of victory in those wins has been 18.4. (Eighteen! Point! Four!) Needless to say, a 10-1 record with an average margin of victory of 18.4 would be impressive against anybody. So the idea that Villanova has managed to do that against a Xavier program that's averaged 24 wins over the past four seasons, made the NCAA Tournament each time, including the Sweet 16 twice, and is currently 24-4 and ranked fourth in the AP poll is totally insane. I'm not sure any great program has dominated another great program the way Villanova has dominated Xavier in this five-year span. If they meet again in the Big East Tournament, the Wildcats should be the pick.

And by then, Phil Booth will be back.

That was an extra bit of good news for Villanova fans Saturday -- that Booth's right hand is out of a cast. Jay Wright said the 6-foot-3 guard is likely to play Wednesday for the first time in eight games when the Wildcats host DePaul. "He'll be really limited," Wright added. "We're going to be careful with him."

Bottom line, Villanova lost a double-digit scorer for seven games and still maintained its hold on a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament by completing a regular-season sweep of another possible No. 1 seed. Impressive stuff. And that 1-2 stretch featuring losses to unranked St. John's and unranked Providence suddenly seems like a million years ago.

Villanova is fine.

The Wildcats beat Xavier bad -- just like usual.

Now they're in position to win the Big East again -- just like usual.