PHILADELPHIA — When UCLA's best player, Darren Collison, complained to the referees about Villanova's physical play during their second-round game Saturday afternoon, it was clear the Bruins were headed for a thumping in the second round of the East Regional.

Broad Street Bullies 89, Bruins 69.

"I was talking to the official because I thought they were fouling a little bit too hard," Collison said.

Before sixth-seeded UCLA met No. 3 Villanova (28-7), the Bruins said they didn't mind winning ugly. For all the Big East bravado about tough, physical play, the Bruins (26-9) reminded everyone that they know a bit about lockdown defense, given their coach, Ben Howland, built his defense-first reputation at Pittsburgh.

Afterward, Collison still wasn't backing down. "They were a physical team. We're a physical team. It's nothing we haven't seen in the Pac-10," he said, even after the Wildcats outrebounded the Bruins 41-29, including 16 offensive boards, forced 20 turnovers and got 46 points in the paint.

Villanova set the tone early, 30 seconds into the game in fact, when guard Scottie Reynolds fouled Collison as he went up for a shot.

"He goes to block a shot, he doesn't give up an easy basket, he's showing, 'I don't care how many fouls I get, but they're not getting easy baskets,'." said Villanova coach Jay Wright.

"We pride ourselves on coming out and setting the tone, letting other teams know how it's going to be for the rest of the game," said Villanova guard Reggie Redding. "The first play actually when Scottie got a good foul on Collison, that let them know they're going to be in for a battle."

The Wildcats now head to Boston for a game next Thursday against the winner of the Duke-Texas game played Saturday night. "I think they have a real chance to move forward in this tournament," Howland said. "Whoever's going to put them out is going to be a very good team."

Howland and the Bruins head back to Los Angeles, their hopes of a fourth consecutive Final Four dashed.

Playing in a bruising league is an advantage for the Wildcats when they face other teams that don't back down. However, it was a bit of a problem Thursday during the opening-round win against No. 14 American.

"Sometimes in the NCAA tournament, it happened a little bit Thursday night, because you're used to playing so physical, there's things you get away with in the Big East, then you get officials from another part of the country, you get called for little bumps. We talked to the guys about that before we go in," Wright said. "Then sometimes, like today, UCLA is physical. So you're not shocked, you know. That's when you say, 'OK, we've played teams like this night in and night out.'."

Throughout the second half, the overwhelmingly home crowd of 19,894 at the Wachovia Center was on its feet after every key steal, hustle play and three-pointer. The complete game was a substantial improvement from the Wildcats' first half against American, in which Villanova trailed by 10 points at the break before staging a comeback on the strength of its defense to win 80-67.

Saturday, with about 30 seconds left in the game, Wright called his seniors around him at the end of the bench. The group had just recorded their 100th victory, the most wins for any class in the 89-year history of the program.

This was his message: "We haven't really played 40 minutes. We've had games where we've had leads. We kind of got lackadaisical. I just wanted them to understand how important of a game this is. They played 40 minutes. Look what the results can be, how good they can be."