Men's College Hoops Spotlight: Rebuilding, Villanova Eyes NCAA Tournament Berth

PeoplesBank Arena (Hartford, Conn.) — Six years ago, UConn head coach Dan Hurley sat for a post-game news conference at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia following an excruciating defeat to No. 14 Villanova, a program that had won two national championships across the previous four seasons and was unquestionably among the best in the sport. 

In that moment, the Huskies were still recovering and rebuilding from the ruinous conditions left behind by predecessor Kevin Ollie, who brought home a title in 2014 but was eventually fired amid an NCAA investigation into recruiting violations. The final two seasons of Ollie’s tenure came and went without an NCAA tournament appearance, as did the first two years under Hurley in 2018-19 and 2019-20 — an interminable wait for a place accustomed to contending with college basketball’s elite. And on that afternoon against Villanova, the standard Hurley was desperate to reclaim stared at him during the handshake line: then-Wildcats head coach Jay Wright, a future Hall of Famer. 

"This is part of the process that you go through when you’re going from where we’ve been to getting back to the level that Villanova is at," Hurley said on Jan. 18. 2020, "which is where UConn expects to be. And that’s a process. And today was just another learning growth moment for our younger players to learn from."

Several minutes later, Hurley ended his news conference with a soundbite that would be replayed and re-quoted thousands of times in the coming years as UConn surged toward back-to-back national championships: "People better get us now," he said. "That’s all. You better get us now because it’s coming."

Fast-forward to last Saturday, and the tables have largely turned, where No. 2 UConn is now firmly entrenched among the upper echelon of both the Big East and the sport as a whole, while Villanova, which fired head coach Kyle Neptune last March, is clawing back in its first year under Kevin Willard. But the Wildcats, picked to finish seventh in the league’s preseason poll, are significantly ahead of schedule and sit 15-5 overall with a 6-3 mark in conference play that should have them in the mix for an NCAA tournament berth after failing to qualify each of the last three seasons. Villanova pushing the Huskies to the absolute brink in what finished as a 75-67 overtime loss — even though the Wildcats led for 29:45 of game time — showed Hurley what he believes is a glimpse of the program’s burgeoning future with Willard in charge.  

"Just a heck of a Big East game," Hurley said in his post-game news conference. "I mean, that’s like the true definition of a Big East conference game right there. For me, kind of just reflecting on it now, it’s like when I got to UConn, you know, we were s--- and Nova was on top. It was the best program in the country. And then we rose, you know, and they struggled a little bit. But I thought what you saw today was going to be the beginning of, I think, these UConn-Villanova games, classic games, where both teams are championship level at the same time."

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It certainly felt that way. Villanova, which received votes but remained unranked in this week’s AP Poll, challenged Hurley’s team on an afternoon in which the Wildcats made more 3-pointers, scored more second-chance points and held a rebounding advantage over the significantly taller Huskies until the game’s waning moments. They led 61-59 with 1:06 remaining in regulation before conceding a late basket to UConn center Tarris Reed Jr. and then tied the game with 1:42 to play in overtime before failing to score another point, sullying an otherwise outstanding performance. 

"We should have won that game," Willard told reporters.

Though the lamentations from Willard and his players were certainly understandable given the nature of Saturday’s defeat, the macro view of Villanova’s program is far more encouraging: For the Wildcats to be this competent and this competitive during the first year of a program-wide rebuild following an overdue separation from the remnants of Wright’s coaching tree should serve as a warning to the remainder of the Big East. The current trajectory suggests it won’t be long before Villanova renews its national relevance. 

"I think you’re going to see, you know, this rivalry and these games being played when both teams are at the top of college basketball," Hurley said. "Because I know what they look like in Year 1, you know, with Kevin [Willard] and the staff, they made us earn the s--- out of this one."

The breadth of the rebuild has been significant. Neptune, the handpicked successor to Wright, floundered in fewer than three seasons at the helm, none of which ended with an NCAA tournament berth. Villanova only averaged 18 wins per year during Neptune’s tenure — and never finished better than 11-9 in the Big East — after falling short of 20 wins in a season just twice from 2004-22 with Wright at the helm. Such a run was particularly dispiriting given how recently the Wildcats had reached college basketball’s pinnacle and how significant the NIL investments were for what amounted to middling results. 

In many ways, the precipitous nature of Villanova’s collapse meant that Willard was effectively starting from scratch when forming a roster. There are only three players on his current team who were with the Wildcats last year in forward Matt Hodge and guards Wade Chiddick and Tyler Perkins. But Perkins, a former Penn transfer now averaging 12.5 points per game, which ranks second on the team behind fellow guard Bryce Lindsey, is the lone returner who actually saw the floor last season. Instead, Willard flooded the squad with seven newcomers from the transfer portal, including two who followed him from Maryland. 

"I got to put the right lineups out there at times," Willard said following Saturday’s loss to UConn. "And I’m learning a lot about certain guys and what to do."

Still, the early returns for Willard have been quite impressive even with the steep learning curve. Six different Wildcats are averaging double-figure scoring at the midway point of conference play, including standout freshman point guard Acaden Lewis (11.9 points per game), the No. 33 overall prospect in the 2025 recruiting cycle and the jewel of Willard’s first class. Villanova, which is tied for third with Creighton in the Big East standings, now sits 27th nationally in KenPom, 31st on T-Rank, 37th on EvanMiya.com and 34th in the NCAA NET Rankings. Even if Villanova fails to win the Big East tournament in early March, the path toward an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament is very real given what the Wildcats have already accomplished.

Simply getting to March Madness would be quite an achievement for a team now ranked among the top 40 nationally in both offensive and defensive efficiency, which hasn’t happened at Villanova since Wright’s last ride during the 2021-22 campaign. Four of the Wildcats’ five losses this season have come by single digits, including Saturday’s defeat to UConn and an earlier defeat to St. John’s, the two teams ahead of Willard’s group in the league standings. They are proving, on a nightly basis, that the Wildcats can hang with anyone. 

"I don’t like losing," Willard told reporters after falling to the Huskies. 

And so perhaps, as Hurley once said when the programs' roles were reversed in 2020, people better get the Wildcats now. Because with Willard in charge, it certainly looks like Villanova is coming.