Villanova has been called a lot of things during Kyle Neptune’s first two-plus seasons at the helm.
Now, finally, the Wildcats are being called an NCAA Tournament contender.
Villanova will aim to continue building its case for an NCAA Tournament bid Saturday night, when the Wildcats visit St. John’s in a battle of longtime Big East rivals.
Villanova has been off since Wednesday, when Eric Dixon scored 23 points as the host Wildcats earned a 68-66 upset win over No. 9 UConn, the two-time defending national champions. St. John’s last played Tuesday, when the visiting Red Storm beat Xavier 82-72.
The win was the third straight and eighth in nine games for Villanova (11-5, 4-1 Big East), which is in a three-way tie for second in the conference with UConn and St. John’s.
Such a sturdy position in early January seemed hard to imagine when the Wildcats started off 3-4 — a stretch that included upset losses to mid-majors Columbia and Saint Joseph’s.
But the future for Neptune and Villanova has grown brighter over the last six-plus weeks. The Wildcats — who went 35-33 with a pair of first-round NIT losses in Neptune’s first two seasons as the replacement for two-time national championship winner Jay Wright — have recorded five wins by double digits and upset then-No. 14 Cincinnati 68-60 on Dec. 3.
“This is a long season,” Neptune said Wednesday night. “We’ve got over half the season to go. We’ve just got to continue to get better. Personal stuff doesn’t really matter at this point.”
St. John’s (13-3, 4-1) has continued to get better in its second year under Rick Pitino. The Red Storm, whose three losses have been by a combined five points, entered Friday as the sixth-best defensive team in the nation, per KenPom.com, after failing to crack the top 50 in each of the last six seasons.
St. John’s has also been tenacious while trying to work through some issues on offense. The Red Storm are shooting just 30 percent from 3-point land, including a horrid 14.9 percent in league play. They are just 3-of-37 from beyond the arc in the last two games.
But St. John’s leads the conference with 14.8 offensive rebounds per game. The Red Storm’s 20 offensive rebounds resulted in 22 second-chance points Wednesday night at Xavier, when they led for the final 37-plus minutes.
“You just want to keep ascending and we are,” Pitino said. “And you want to play great basketball. Obviously we’re not (making) threes again (Wednesday), but they were all good threes (and) we got the rebound.”
–Field Level Media
