College Basketball Opened Its Season in Rome: Notre Dame Beat Villanova 74-72, and the No. 13 Irish Women Completed the Sweep 99-75

College basketball's 2026-27 season opened in Rome on Sunday, and it opened with a comeback. Notre Dame rallied from a 10-point second-half deficit to beat Villanova 74-72 in the men's game of the Eternal City Tip-Off at the Palazzo dello Sport, Reuters and the Associated Press reported in files opened and read directly by the desk this run. Brady Koehler racked up 16 points, eight rebounds, two steals and two blocks for the Fighting Irish, Braeden Smith also scored 16, and Logan Duncomb hit the go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:08 to go - Notre Dame's first lead of the second half, 70-68 - before Koehler's two free throws with four seconds left made it 74-70.

Villanova gave the game away as much as Notre Dame took it, by the numbers Reuters carried: the Wildcats committed 20 turnovers despite outshooting Notre Dame 46.2 percent to 35.4 percent. Tyler Perkins went 5-for-11 from 3-point range and had a game-high 18 points before fouling out with 16.3 seconds to go; Elijah Crawford added 12 points and a game-high five assists, and 7-foot-3 Italian Luigi Suigo, making his Villanova debut on home soil, finished with seven points including two dunks and a 3-pointer. Villanova led 35-31 at halftime on Crawford's pull-up in the final seconds, and Darryl Simmons II's uncontested layup at the buzzer set the final margin.

The setting is the story's other half, and both wire files state it the same way. The doubleheader between two of the United States' most prominent Catholic universities was created to honour the first American pope: Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV, a 1977 Villanova graduate, received all four teams in an audience at the Vatican on Saturday but did not attend the games, which were played at the 11,000-seat Palazzo dello Sport, about a half-hour's drive from the Vatican, on All Saints' Day - a major Catholic holiday, the AP reported. Villanova had the pope's support and many more travelling fans; Notre Dame got the wins.

Both of them. In the second game, Hannah Hidalgo starred as the No. 13 Notre Dame women beat Villanova 99-75 to complete the sweep, the AP reported - Hidalgo finished with 32 points, eight assists, seven rebounds and three steals. Next, per the reports read this run: Notre Dame's men host another Catholic school, Mercyhurst, in their home opener on Thursday, while Villanova's men welcome Holy Cross on Friday night.