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 definitely felt that method. Villanova, which obtained votes however remained unranked in this week’s AP Poll, challenged Hurley’s staff on a day during which the Wildcats made extra 3-pointers, scored extra second-chance factors and held a rebounding benefit over the considerably taller Huskies till the sport’s waning moments. They led 61-59 with 1:06 remaining in regulation earlier than conceding a late basket to UConn heart Tarris Reed Jr. after which tied the sport with 1:42 to play in time beyond regulation earlier than failing to attain one other level, sullying an in any other case excellent efficiency.
“We should always have gained that recreation,” Willard advised reporters.
(Picture by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Pictures)
Although the lamentations from Willard and his gamers have been definitely comprehensible given the character of Saturday’s defeat, the macro view of Villanova’s program is way extra encouraging: For the Wildcats to be this competent and this aggressive throughout the first yr of a program-wide rebuild following an overdue separation from the remnants of Wright’s teaching tree ought to function a warning to the rest of the Large East. The present trajectory suggests it gained’t be lengthy earlier than Villanova renews its nationwide relevance.
“I believe you’re going to see, you understand, this rivalry and these video games being performed when each groups are on the high of faculty basketball,” Hurley mentioned. “As a result of I do know what they appear like in Yr 1, you understand, with Kevin [Willard] and the employees, they made us earn the s— out of this one.”
The breadth of the rebuild has been important. Neptune, the handpicked successor to Wright, floundered in fewer than three seasons on the helm, none of which ended with an NCAA event berth. Villanova solely averaged 18 wins per yr throughout Neptune’s tenure — and by no means completed higher than 11-9 within the Large East — after falling wanting 20 wins in a season simply twice from 2004-22 with Wright on the helm. Such a run was notably dispiriting given how not too long ago the Wildcats had reached school basketball’s pinnacle and the way important the NIL investments have been for what amounted to middling outcomes.
In some ways, the precipitous nature of Villanova’s collapse meant that Willard was successfully ranging from scratch when forming a roster. There are solely three gamers on his present staff who have been with the Wildcats final yr in ahead Matt Hodge and guards Wade Chiddick and Tyler Perkins. However Perkins, a former Penn switch now averaging 12.5 factors per recreation, which ranks second on the staff behind fellow guard Bryce Lindsey, is the lone returner who really noticed the ground final season. As an alternative, Willard flooded the squad with seven newcomers from the switch portal, together with two who adopted him from Maryland.
“I acquired to place the fitting lineups on the market at occasions,” Willard mentioned following Saturday’s loss to UConn. “And I’m studying loads about sure guys and what to do.”
(Picture by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Pictures)
Nonetheless, the early returns for Willard have been fairly spectacular even with the steep studying curve. Six completely different Wildcats are averaging double-figure scoring on the halfway level of convention play, together with standout freshman level guard Acaden Lewis (11.9 factors per recreation), the No. 33 total prospect within the 2025 recruiting cycle and the jewel of Willard’s first-class. Villanova, which is tied for third with Creighton within the Large East standings, now sits twenty seventh nationally in KenPom, thirty first on T-Rank, thirty seventh on EvanMiya.com and thirty fourth within the NCAA NET Rankings. Even when Villanova fails to win the Large East event in early March, the trail towards an at-large bid to the NCAA event may be very actual given what the Wildcats have already achieved.
Merely attending to March Insanity could be fairly an achievement for a staff now ranked among the many high 40 nationally in each offensive and defensive effectivity, which hasn’t occurred at Villanova since Wright’s final journey throughout the 2021-22 marketing campaign. 4 of the Wildcats’ 5 losses this season have come by single digits, together with Saturday’s defeat to UConn and an earlier defeat to St. John’s, the 2 groups forward of Willard’s group within the league standings. They’re proving, on a nightly foundation, that the Wildcats can cling with anybody.
“I don’t like dropping,” Willard advised reporters after falling to the Huskies.
And so maybe, as Hurley as soon as mentioned when the applications’ roles have been reversed in 2020, folks higher get the Wildcats now. As a result of with Willard in cost, it definitely seems to be like Villanova is coming.
