Kyle Neptune has to make some changes to resurrect Villanova. The boosters will have to get used to them.

Villanova could have kept quiet about Kyle Neptune’s status as its head men’s basketball coach, could have let its inaction speak for itself in the way that the Eagles’ silence on Nick Sirianni’s future did. So it’s telling that Mark Jackson, Villanova’s athletic director, felt the need to reaffirm the university’s commitment to Neptune after two NCAA Tournament-free seasons.

“I think we have the right guy in place to get us where we need to go,” Jackson told The Inquirer’s Jeff Neiburg on Thursday, and it’s fair to guess that loads of Villanova boosters and fans reacted to Jackson’s thought with groans and complaints that Neptune was out of his depth and the program was in danger of falling to the bottom of the Big East forever. At least, that’s what they say when they email me and Jeff.

There’s no doubt that Villanova is taking a calculated risk here. The Wildcats are 35-33 — and 0-2 in the NIT — through Neptune’s first two years, and they have been maddeningly inconsistent, too often playing down to inferior opponents and not quite good enough to beat superior ones. Firing Neptune would have been the quick, easy thing to do. It would have been oh-so satisfying for those who want Villanova’s program back to where it was under Jay Wright … and who want it back there now. But it also would have established a new and unprecedented standard within the program for evaluating someone in Neptune’s position.

Villanova has had just nine head coaches in its history. Since 1930, the shortest tenure of any of its coaches is nine years, by Steve Lappas. That’s not meant to slight Lappas, just to indicate that when Villanova says Yes to a coach, it assumes that Yes lasts a good long time. And in today’s age of name, image, and likeness deals, one can make a good case that Villanova is smart to stand by Neptune, in that there’s value in this unstable environment of offering stability. Kyle Neptune is our guy. He’s not going anywhere. You can count on that. We do not cycle through head coaches. If you’re thinking about entering our program, either as a freshman or a transfer, you should understand that and act accordingly.

» READ MORE: ‘We have the right guy in place’: Villanova is committed to coach Kyle Neptune

The open and obvious question then is, how will Villanova’s NIL donors react to that stance? Will they stop funding the recruitment and retention and payment of players? Will they stop buying tickets? Essentially, Villanova’s leaders are daring those boosters to do exactly that. They’re saying that they won’t be bullied by Neptune’s most outspoken critics. But is it smart to do that when some of those critics likely have the deepest pockets among the program’s donors?

No one has those answers now, but in the meantime, there are measures Neptune can take to help himself. He could stand to be less guarded, more relaxed, and more forthcoming in public. There’s nothing wrong with a head coach acknowledging that his team has played poorly when it has, in fact, played poorly. That strategy is better and more authentic than insisting that every close game or tough loss is a byproduct of Big East basketball or a hardy opponent.

While Neptune’s staff of assistants — Ashley Howard, Mike Nardi, Dwayne Anderson — are all fine coaches, they’re all steeped in the ‘Nova Way, and it might benefit Neptune to add someone to lend an outsider’s perspective, for the sake of something fresh. And though ‘Nova scooped up several transfers last summer to try to make up for the late start Neptune got in recruiting after Wright retired, that hoarding of talent didn’t keep the Wildcats from staggering through a mediocre 2023-24 season. There’s a lesson there. After Kentucky’s first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Oakland last week, Wright himself offered some interesting analysis of John Calipari’s approach to recruiting. The analysis was relevant, too, to the program that used to be his domain.

“The era of taking these young freshmen and trying to play against older players is over,” Wright said on CBS. “I think he did a phenomenal job with these guys all year, getting to be as successful as they were. You can see they’re playing against grown men. The guys on Kentucky will be far better pros than any of these guys on Oakland or any of these guys in the tournament. But they’re not as good college basketball players.

“At this point in their career, they’re not as disciplined yet as the guys from Oakland, and it’s not Cal’s fault. It’s that they’re 18 years old, and they’re in this era where everyone’s telling them how great they are — just show up in college, and you’re going to win. It doesn’t happen that way, and the more the guys stay in college because of NIL, it’s going to be tougher for young teams like this to be successful.”

» READ MORE: Villanova and Kyle Neptune have to figure out what kind of program they want to be

The same principle applies to Villanova’s attempt to shortcut its way back to excellence by taking on so many transfers at once. There’s no lightning-in-a-bottle remedy for Kyle Neptune and the people who support his program. He has to target the right kind of players, and he has to use the ample resources at his disposal to get them and keep them. The best thing he has going for him now is that, whether any of those angry emailers like it or not, he apparently will be given time to do it.