Villanova basketball: Can Jay Wright get Wildcats back to Final Four?

After a down year by their own lofty standards, Jay Wright has a different kind of challenge in front of him to take the Wildcats back to elite status.

When you’ve won two of the previous three national championships, you’ve earned yourself a bit of a shield from criticism. Such was the case for the 2018-19 Villanova Wildcats, who had a perfectly fine season going 26-10 and winning the Big East Tournament. The problem was that they looked like one of the top teams in the country only in spurts, and suffering multiple uncharacteristic swoons — one right at the start of the season, when the Wildcats dropped two of their first four games, and another late, losing three straight and four of five in the conference.

What was strange about the season as it unfolded is that the roster looked very much like it was built to follow the Jay Wright blueprint for success, led by upperclassmen and supplemented by enviable young talent. But while Phil Booth and Eric Paschall were statistically every bit the equals of their predecessors, they didn’t always get the support they needed in big games, and thus it wasn’t shocking when Villanova was sent home in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

Avoiding a similar fate this season means figuring out a slightly different way to win. This team still has some veteran leadership, though less than in years past. The incoming freshman class is loaded again, and most intriguingly, the sophomores could be the most important elements to tying everything together. The poll voters have given the Wildcats a semi-vote of no confidence, placing them 10th in both the AP and coaches’ rankings. That makes them tops in the Big East but still reflects the concern that the ups and downs they saw over the last 12 months might return. Here are the reasons to think they won’t.

The sophomores may be ready to step up

Because they didn’t make a huge impact, it’s easy to forget that Villanova’s 2018 recruits made for a top-10 class. The supposed gem of that group, five-star point guard Jahvon Quinerly, is gone, transferring to Alabama after playing just nine minutes a game off the bench last season. That makes last year’s class a sunk cost.

Or maybe not. Saddiq Bey earned All-Freshman team honors in the Big East by averaging 8.2 points and 5.1 rebounds a game and has many fans and media members feeling that he’s bound for big things as a sophomore. The 6-foot-8 Bey can score inside and out, crashes the glass and generally avoids mental errors. In other words, he’s Wright’s kind of player.

Classmate Cole Swider was a top-50 recruit but was slowed by injury last season. He had a reputation as a sharpshooter that didn’t manifest itself when he did play (he shot just 37.5 percent from the floor and 28.3 percent from beyond the arc), but if he’s able to earn consistent minutes and display confidence in his shot, Swider could emerge as a key member of this year’s rotation and spark the second unit. Some observers are high on wing Brandon Slater as well, so there’s a real chance for this bunch to change the minds of anyone who has already written them off.

The new freshmen are even more highly regarded

The old adage about try, try again when at first you don’t succeed applies to Wright and his recruiting prowess, because he followed last year’s class with an even more promising haul for 2019. It starts with Jeremiah Robinson-Earl, a 6-foot-9, 235-pound power forward who figures to slot right into the starting lineup to provide muscle, rebounding and rim protection.

Pro evaluators are even higher on fellow five-star prospect Bryan Antoine, a potentially explosive scorer who figures to be a possible one-and-done star — though with an important caveat. Antoine needed surgery during the offseason for a torn labrum and still hasn’t been cleared to start playing basketball again. Reports suggest he could redshirt because his recovery is taking so long, meaning the Wildcats might not benefit from his talents until the second half of 2020.

That’s no help for this year’s team, but Justin Moore, another shooting guard ranked in the top 100 in the country, could be. Add in four-star forward Eric Dixon and there’s plenty of opportunities for these freshmen to make an immediate impact of the kind Villanova hasn’t always been blessed with, even on the title-winning teams.

Yes, there are veterans to serve as the backbone too

Even without seniors like Booth and Paschall to show the way, the Wildcats have experienced players who should take the lessons learned from last year’s rocky stretches and apply them to ensure they don’t happen again. Foremost among them is guard Collin Gillespie, expected to be the engine that makes this squad go. The junior averaged just under 11 points and three assists a game during the 2018-19 campaign, but with Booth gone, that second number could rise dramatically.

His frontcourt counterpart Jermaine Samuels might be almost as important, particularly until Robinson-Earl, and to a lesser extent, Bey, settle into their roles. It’s a testament to the talent on this team that Samuels might not progress beyond being the fourth option on offense, but he figures to be a good one even if that’s the case.

Wright should be able to rely on the defense more

Put bluntly, what the Wildcats played last season was not Villanova-caliber defense. After finishing inside the top 30 during every season in the “New” Big East era, the 2018-19 squad ended up 81st in the KenPom adjusted defensive rankings at year’s end, which might explain why ‘Nova experienced the roller coaster it did more than any other one stat.

Wright prefers to man up against opponents and found that difficult with the options available to him last season. His current group of Wildcats is deeper and arguably more athletic from top to bottom, which suggests that it should be better at keeping opponents under wraps. Expect Villanova to lean on its defense through an early season schedule that includes showdowns with Ohio State and Kansas — and actually be able to count on it.

The best-case scenario is …

Yet another Big East title, with Villanova, pushed by the likes of Seton Hall and Xavier but ultimately simply too deep to keep down. Robinson-Earl proves to be as good as hoped, Gillespie handles the increased role he’s given as a facilitator with aplomb, and the sophomores open eyes, led by Bey. As an added bonus, Antoine returns to something approximating full health in time for the conference slate and really catches fire during the Big East Tournament.

Most importantly, Wright and the Wildcats never lose consecutive games during a season that once again sees them hit the 30-win plateau and enter the NCAA Tournament as one of the No. 1 seeds. Despite not having enough believers in October, there’s no lack of people in March who think they’re headed for another trip to the Final Four.

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