Villanova basketball: What’s working, what’s not, and the path to the dance as Wildcats brace for Big East play

An eventful 11-game nonconference schedule for the Villanova men’s basketball team wrapped up Wednesday night with a ho-hum 14-point win over Fairleigh Dickinson, one of the worst teams in college basketball.

It was the embodiment of the shrug emoji.

The Wildcats weren’t very good. They weren’t very bad. They looked at times like a team that was sleepwalking toward final exams. In the end, it was an 86-72 win that actually hurt Villanova’s metrics. The Wildcats were ranked 45h by KenPom metrics before the game started, and moved to 48th when it went final.

A worthless win, a description that has been applied to plenty of Villanova basketball games over the last few seasons.

Still, it was a fifth win in six games for a Villanova team that opened the season with three losses in five games. That stretch included a home loss to Columbia, a road loss against a St. Joseph’s team that was a disappointing 137th in NET rankings as of Wednesday, and an embarrassing drubbing on a neutral court to Virginia, which will undoubtedly struggle in the Atlantic Coast Conference this season.

The Wildcats are 7-4. They romped Temple Saturday in the third-place game at the Big 5 Classic, a win that came on the heels of a victory over then-No. 14 Cincinnati.

Like Wednesday night, the early portion of the Villanova season has featured some good and some bad. Here are some overarching thoughts on the Wildcats as they prepare to open Big East play Tuesday night at Finneran Pavilion.

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It’s not worth spending a lot of time here because it is stating the obvious: Eric Dixon has been one of the best players in college basketball.

He scored 27 points Wednesday night and is second in the NCAA in scoring at nearly 26 points per game. He is at the top of the leaderboard in KenPom’s offensive rating and is shooting a hard-to-believe 54.1% on 65 shots from three-point range. He will likely be in the conversation to be named a first-team All-American.

Dixon will win Villanova games on his own. He nearly did it with 38 points vs. a Maryland team that is knocking on the door of the Associated Press Top 25, a one-point loss that would have looked a lot better as a one-point win.

Defensively, he’s still a work in progress in his new power forward spot, but that is nitpicking considering where that ranks on the list of concerns.

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Jhamir Brickus started shaking his head to indicate a yes, but the question was being directed to Villanova coach Kyle Neptune. In a 68-60 win over Cincinnati last week, Brickus was 3-for-5 from three-point range and had nine assists. After an up-and-down start to the graduate point guard’s Villanova career, Neptune was asked if he finds himself wanting Brickus to be more aggressive offensively.

“He has an uncanny feel for the right play at the right time,” Neptune said. “We’re learning together as we grow here. I’m learning his game and he’s learning what we want him to do. He’ll still get better as the year goes here, starting to feel more comfortable with his teammates and understanding what we want to do offensively.”

Brickus scored 10 points Wednesday and added 10 assists. His offense came in a variety of ways. There was a step-back three-pointer early and a transition baseline jumper. He hit a 30-foot triple over a 2-3 zone in the second half. Later, he lobbed a backdoor pass to Josiah Moseley for an alley-oop.

Wooga Poplar also continued his offensive surge with 19 points. The Miami transfer had a cold start to the season, but is 7-for-13 from three-point range over the last two contests. He is an elite shooter that Villanova needs to help spread the floor. Poplar talked about getting more comfortable with his teammates after Saturday’s win over Temple — the Wildcats consistently play four transfers and two freshmen.

If Brickus and Poplar can be consistent contributors like Villanova expected them — and its collective paid them — to be, it will be a big boost and the difference between wins and losses.

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Villanova entered Tuesday night with the 12th-highest three-point percentage in the NCAA and the highest among all 11 Big East teams. Dixon’s big number is a key reason, but Brickus was also over 50% and Penn transfer Tyler Perkins was at 42%. Poplar is one of the team’s better shooters historically, but he was at 34.5% before going 3-for-6 from deep.

The Wildcats haven’t been overly reliant on threes. They entered Wednesday 54th in three-point attempts per game.

The offense has been good. It ranked 16th in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric late Wednesday night.

Recent Neptune teams have been really good defensively and inefficient offensively. This team is the opposite. The Wildcats were 13th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric last season and 87th offensively. This year’s team, with different personnel, is 128th on defense.

It gave up 90 points at home to Columbia and made a Virginia offense ranked 184th nationally look potent.

There are real concerns on that end, especially with conference play looming. Jordan Longino and Poplar look like the only capable stoppers, and while it’s important to have stoppers on the wings, the Wildcats have plenty of holes. They ranked 252nd in three-point defense as of Wednesday night.

It will be an area Neptune and his staff need to drill while the Wildcats play just two games over the next three weeks.

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Yes, but not a smooth one.

Losses to Columbia, St. Joe’s, and Virginia won’t look very good in March, but there are 20 games left in the regular season, and a lot of opportunities on the horizon.

Seton Hall isn’t very good, and so Villanova should be 8-4 heading to Creighton on Dec. 21 to play its final game before a holiday break. Dixon vs. Creighton’s Ryan Kalkbrenner will be great television in a game that presents Villanova an opportunity to pick up a solid road win.

The Big East had a rough start to the 2024-25 season, but UConn, Marquette, Creighton, and St. John’s look like surefire tournament teams, and others, Villanova included, have the potential to be.

Those ugly losses made the path rocky. It was a pretty light nonconference schedule, and a 9-2 record is what the talent on this Villanova team probably could have produced. That would have increased the margin for error in a conference that can be unrelenting. Instead, it’s this.

What, exactly, does the record need to look like? It’s hard to say without consulting a Bracketologist, but 13-7 with a few resumé-boosting wins would look good. That being said, 12-8 might be a bit too bubbly for comfort, and might leave the Wildcats on the outside for the third consecutive season under Neptune. If you’re laughing after reading those records, well, that’s a justified skeptical response for a team that has caused some hopeless laughter. Because 13-7 feels just as likely as 8-12.

New athletic director Eric Roedl starts in a few weeks after the football team at his current school, Oregon, finishes its run at a college football title. Villanova has won four straight since Roedl was introduced at a news conference in late November, and while Roedl hasn’t officially started yet, the evaluation of the basketball program is certainly underway.