What’s next for Villanova under Kyle Neptune? Justin Moore’s decision and an aggressive transfer portal haul are up first.

If you thought last offseason was weird in Villanova basketball land, there’s a Bachman-Turner Overdrive song to describe this one and the offseasons of the future.

Villanova used the transfer portal under Jay Wright, but not to the degree other teams did. It’s probably part of the reason Kyle Neptune has the reins now, the new world of the transfer portal and NIL.

Now? Keeping up with the Joneses means hitting the portal hard, and Neptune and his staff are actively on the hunt for a few pieces.

The offseason started as soon as the buzzer sounded on Villanova’s NIT loss at Liberty. And how Villanova fares in the portal, among a few other factors, will drive whether the Wildcats will make the 2024 NCAA Tournament after missing this one for the first time since 2012.

Neptune isn’t making excuses, but his first season as Villanova men’s basketball coach was far from perfect. We can make a few of those excuses for him.

The season kicked off by needing two managers and two former players to suit up in the annual Blue/White game. Injuries during the season to Justin Moore, Cam Whitmore, Jordan Longino and Nnanna Njoku, and the late December transfer of Angelo Brizzi led to Villanova playing a total of zero games with a full rotation. Take Njoku, a reserve center, out of the mix and Villanova still played only seven regular season games with what amounted to a normal rotation.

The Wildcats, who finished 16-15 (10-10 Big East), went 5-2 in those seven games.

“For our program, we always look at where our team got to by the end,” Neptune said. “We dealt with a lot. There were two or three games we weren’t really in, but other than that we were in every game.

“In the end, our team was right there.”

Now, Neptune and his staff have a lot of work to do to rebuild a roster that needs some work heading into 2023-24.

Caleb Daniels and Brandon Slater have exhausted their eligibility, and Whitmore will be off to the NBA, but who’s still around and what comes next for Villanova, next season and beyond?

» READ MORE: No NCAA Tournament for Villanova, and no ducking the challenges ahead

By Monday, with the college basketball season still in its final week, more than 1,000 names were in the Division I transfer portal. The list grows every day, and the last two seasons have seen more than 1,600 players enter the portal each spring.

There’s no escaping this reality for Villanova now. Just look at some of the rosters of teams making deep runs in the NCAA Tournament. Miami starts three transfers. UConn starts one, and its sixth and seventh men are transfers, too. On the other side of the bracket, San Diego State starts two and brings two off the bench. Florida Atlantic starts two, and brings another off the bench.

The old Villanova Basketball way, as a proper noun, might not be dead, but it’s never going to look the same again.

In part because of the coaching change and other factors, Villanova has just one signed recruit in the class of 2023, Jordann Dumont, a Canadian wing who is not expected to be a major contributor right away.

Villanova has been active in recruiting portal players in recent weeks.

Neptune, who used the portal to help build Fordham’s roster in the one year he coached there, said this era of the transfer portal “adds a completely different dynamic.”

“There’s never a time where you’re not recruiting,” he said. “There’s an open season that just didn’t exist to this degree five years ago. There is a completely new entity along with doing the traditional, normal recruiting.”

But “traditional, normal recruiting” has forever changed. New Duke coach Jon Scheyer told The Athletic in February “I don’t think we’ll recruit as many freshmen in a class going forward.”

Another dynamic in this whole thing: recruiting players that are on your roster and not even in the portal. Teams are constantly reaching out to players through AAU coaches and other methods to pique interest.

Right now, Villanova hasn’t had a player enter the portal. Still, it’s a safe assumption the Wildcats are looking for two starters. A scoring guard and versatile wing are needed. So is a center who can defend the rim.

» READ MORE: Assessing Kyle Neptune during a tough rookie season at Villanova

In the immediate future, nothing impacts Villanova’s trajectory — and what it needs in the portal — quite like the decision Moore will make about his future.

Neptune said Moore was “evaluating where he is in terms of being a pro,” and that process will continue for the next couple of weeks. Moore is not expected to be selected in the 2023 NBA Draft. That doesn’t mean he wouldn’t be signed as an undrafted free agent and land on a summer roster with a chance to prove himself. But Moore, who is on track to graduate in May, isn’t a surefire NBA talent right now.

Because of the pandemic, he has a fifth year of eligibility to use in college, at Villanova or elsewhere (though transferring is an unlikely result).

This is where Moore’s decision is, and what it comes down to: would a fifth year in college really improve his chances of being drafted? Can a NIL package at Villanova get near the level of a G League or European salary? Does he want to take graduate classes?

Moore started to look like himself in the final month of the season after debuting Jan. 29, 10 months after Achilles surgery.

If he returns to Villanova, he’d stabilize a roster that right now needs it, especially in the scoring department.

» READ MORE: Justin Moore remains the big question mark when analyzing Villanova’s 2023-24 roster outlook

Oh, how the Big East has changed in a matter of months. From a Villanova lens, just consider this: the Wildcats went from having the best coach in the conference to, at least on paper and by reputation ... the eighth?

It’s not fair to Neptune to give him a rating at this point. Villanova was so banged up and so young in 2022-23, and we’ll know much more about what kind of coach Neptune is a few years down the line after a few recruiting cycles — Villanova is hitting the 2024 class hard — and spins through the transfer portal.

But here’s the gauntlet of coaches in the conference, in no particular order (though we’ll start with a guy who is in this weekend’s Final Four): Dan Hurley at UConn; Rick Pitino at St. John’s; Ed Cooley at Georgetown; Greg McDermott at Creighton; Shaka Smart at Marquette; Sean Miller at Xavier; Thad Matta at Butler.

Shaheen Holloway just got to Seton Hall. Tony Stubblefield just got to DePaul. Kim English, the new Providence coach, can coach.

This is who Neptune and his staff will be recruiting against for the foreseeable future. It’s not an easy road.

» READ MORE: Villanova’s Maddy Siegrist will forgo last year of eligibility and enter the WNBA draft

Understanding Moore holds a lot of the cards, there’s reason for some optimism for Villanova fans, especially if Moore decides to come back.

A backcourt with Mark Armstrong at the point and Moore playing off the ball is easily one of the top backcourts in the conference. Throw in Eric Dixon in the front court, add in a few talented transfers and you have a pretty decent starting five. Maybe Jordan Longino stays healthy and takes a big leap this summer and is right there in the mix. A year better and more seasoned, Brendan Hausen should show off his shooting skills a lot more next season.

Chris Arcidiacono, who has a fifth year of eligibility like Moore, is a nice veteran presence to have and doesn’t turn the ball over. Count another transfer into that bench mix, too, as well as Trey Patterson, Njoku and Dumont.

It’s almost definitely not the best roster, but it’s far from the worst, and is probably, if healthy, an NCAA Tournament team.

As ESPN’s Joe Lunardi told The Inquirer in January: “Villanova might have to get used to being a Sweet 16 program instead of a Final Four program. And 350 other schools would kill for that.”

Adjust your expectations accordingly.