Villanova is failing in the one key statistic that has been a bedrock of the program. Threes.

NEW YORK — In his time as Villanova’s head coach, Jay Wright noted his offensive philosophy was to shoot a lot of threes.

If they didn’t go in? His Wildcats would “sleep in the streets.”

Turns out, this current version of Wildcats under current coach Kyle Neptune has been sleeping in the streets often lately.

Neptune has maintained Wright’s offense predicated on three-pointers and post-ups, but the occasional poor shooting night suffered under Wright has become a trend over the past two seasons. When it comes to Villanova’s field-goal attempts, 48.4% come from three-point range, the ninth-highest nationally, but the Wildcats just make 32.6%, good for the 228th-best percentage in the nation.

The Wildcats have used this system for years. Villanova (11-8, 4-4 Big East) has been in the top 31 nationally in the percentage of three-pointers attempted every season since 2012-13, but it had a three-point percentage of 35% or better every season since 2013-14, headed by 40.1% in 2017-18. That streak ended last year when it dropped to 33.4%. This year’s team has just two players shooting over 35%: Brendan Hausen, shooting a healthy 39.8% (35 of 88), and TJ Bamba at 35.1% (27 of 77).

Those shooting woes were obvious in Wednesday’s loss to St. John’s when the Wildcats were a miserable 4-for-25 from three. However, opposing coaches have seen it all season. UCLA coach Mick Cronin’s defensive game plan was to shut down Hausen — “If you don’t think we told them No. 1 [Hausen] could shoot, you’re crazy,” he said after two Hausen threes sparked a late Villanova comeback — but he was perfectly happy to let the other Wildcats combine to shoot 31 threes.

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A week ago, UConn coach Dan Hurley had a similar sentiment: “We were willing to live and die with anyone not named Hausen. … We wanted to take the three-point line away from Justin [Moore] and Hausen and [Eric] Dixon. We were willing to live with the other guys shooting a lot of threes.”

Hurley’s strategy worked to near perfection. Though UConn won by just one, 66-65, Moore, Hausen, and Dixon were a combined 1-for-8 from three. Villanova’s other shooters kept the Wildcats in it by shooting 6-for-15 from beyond the arc, but those same shooters combined to go 2-for-15 against St. John’s. Take out Bamba’s two makes and Mark Armstrong, Jordan Longino, Tyler Burton, and Hakim Hart were 0-for-13 against the Johnnies.

On paper, the Wildcats should be a decent shooting team. The reality has been much different.

The crux of the issue is this: all but two Wildcats have seen their three-point shooting regress from the past year. Longino and Armstrong are the lone players to improve, but even they have struggled — Longino is shooting 28.6% from three, while Armstrong has been cold, his 5-for-9 explosion in a loss at Marquette notwithstanding.

Admittedly, when the threes go in, Villanova tends to win. The Wildcats are 10-2 when they make at least 31% of their threes, a very reasonable target. Still, there’s also a correlation with the number of threes attempted: the Wildcats are 6-2 this season when shooting 25 threes or fewer, with those two losses coming in the last two games.

So what’s the solution? Neptune pointed to defense and rebounding as the reason his team lost to St. John’s, but admitted, “We had some really good shots for some really good shooters.” Villanova’s offense is built around spacing and reading the defense to get open looks, and Neptune essentially said that won’t change.

“You go through a year and different obstacles happen throughout the year,” Neptune said, referring to the missed threes. “You’ve just got to roll with the punches at times, and as you go, you’ve just got to keep getting better.”

Even with the struggles, Villanova has staked its offensive identity on the three-ball.

“Sometimes they go in, sometimes they don’t, but we can’t stop shooting,” Dixon said Wednesday. “... At the end of the day, make shots or miss shots, you can’t get away from who you are.”

Still, there are signs the Wildcats are trying to shoot fewer threes. After a near hour-long Friday film session, Longino agreed most of the St. John’s looks were the right shot, but not all of them.

“I think, looking back at the film, there’s a couple shots we could have probably gotten in the lane a little more, not settle for threes, especially contested threes,” Longino said. “But ultimately, I mean, we’re all great shooters.”

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Villanova remains confident, but at some point, the shots need to start going in. A 4-1 start to Big East play has evaporated amid a three-game losing streak, with a Saturday trip to Butler and the Hinkle House of Horrors and a Tuesday matchup with No. 14 Marquette looming. Neptune says his team is “a work in progress until the last game,” but the season’s more than halfway done, and Villanova has fallen into NCAA Tournament bubble conversations.

It’s January, and the sand in the hourglass is falling — Villanova needs the threes to fall, too.