Villanova Starting Strong and Finishing Disappointed
Villanova is garnering a reputation for starting strong and finishing disappointed. The last two years they have had early exits from the NCAA Tournament, but it goes deeper than that. Last year the Wildcats lost their last six games, including upsets at the hands of South Florida in the Big East Conference Tournament and George Mason in the NCAA Tournament. The season before that Villanova started off 20-1, only to lose six of their last nine. That year they again lost their first game in the Big East Conference Tournament and barely knocked off 15 seed Robert Morris in the first round of the NCAA Tournament before falling to St. Mary’s.
This is pretty much a new group of Wildcats, but there are no impact seniors on the roster. That means nobody is left who played in the Final Four in 2009. All these guys know is disappointment in March. The brutal Big East tires some teams out by the end of the season and Coach Jay Wright’s usually slim bench may be part of the problem. If all goes as planned, this could be a much deeper team than Nova had a year ago and that could keep the Wildcats fresh when it matters the most.
However, the schedule looks like what it usually looks like in the Big East. Villanova will likely lose two or three non-conference games, have a nice 11-2 record going into conference play and then start to look like a vulnerable team. The Big East slate could be worse since Villanova has road games against winnable opposition like St. John’s, USF and Rutgers and that may be enough to get Villanova their eighth straight .500 or better record in conference play. But finding more than nine wins in the conference might be asking a bit too much for this young team. That would be enough to get the Wildcats back into the NCAA Tournament, but they will need to make some noise once they get there or this program will be labeled as underachievers when it comes to March.
Read the in-depth men’s basketball preview for this team
