Justin Moore gets another ending for Villanova. It has to be easier than his last one.

To be sitting courtside at AT&T Arena in San Antonio on the night of Saturday, March 26, 2022, was to witness the genuine end of the previous, glorious era of Villanova basketball. It was a sickening thing to see. Justin Moore had the ball in his hands. There were fewer than 40 seconds left in the Wildcats’ 50-44 victory over Houston, the victory that sent them to their fourth Final Four under Jay Wright. Moore was along the right wing, dribbling the ball with his left hand, and he pushed off with his right foot to make a move to the basket, and as soon as he did he went down like he’d been struck by a poisoned dart.

You didn’t need a degree from Harvard Medical School to guess what had happened. Moore, Villanova’s second-leading scorer that season, had suffered a torn right Achilles tendon. His season was over. So was the Wildcats’. They gave everything they had against Kansas in the national semifinals, but they needed Moore, and they didn’t have him, and the Jayhawks beat them by 16. It was Wright’s last game as their coach, but the Wildcats had really lost it a week earlier, when they lost Moore.

That Houston game — and that terrible moment — passes through Moore’s mind often … usually when he feels another pang of pain on the back side of his right foot. “It’s impossible to not think about it,” he said after Villanova practiced Tuesday at the Finneran Pavilion, one day before the Wildcats’ first-round game against DePaul in the Big East Tournament. He cannot move laterally like he did before the injury — he suffered a knee sprain in December, too, that hobbled him — and he sometimes catches himself cutting or sprinting on the court and saying to himself, I used to do that quicker and faster.

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“Oh, for sure,” said Moore, who is averaging 10.3 points and shooting just under 86% from the foul line this season. “All the time. Especially early on, when you come back from it and get a little frustrated. But now, it’s just adjusting, taking different angles to get to where I want to get to, knowing that it’s going to come over time.”

The difference in his game is apparent if you watch him. For his first three seasons at Villanova, all before the Achilles tear, he attempted just about the same number of two-point shots as he did three-point shots: 519 twos, 508 threes. Over his 39 games since coming back, though, 56% of his shots from the field have been threes, an indication that his mobility has been compromised, that he doesn’t get to the basket as often or as easily as he once did, that catch-and-shoot has become his bread-and-butter.

It is strange to be describing a basketball player who turns 24 next month in these terms, as if he were older. None of his teammates mentions it or ribs him about it. Tyler Burton is already 24. Eric Dixon and TJ Bamba turned 23 in January. Hakim Hart is 22. “We have a pretty old team outside of him,” coach Kyle Neptune said. “It would kind of be the pot calling the kettle black.”

He has been around long enough that his 1,649 points are more than a host of huge names scored at Villanova: Paul Arizin, Tom Ingelsby, Hubie White, Ryan Arcidiacono, Harold Pressley. And at 6-foot-4 and a solid 210 pounds, Moore can still back down and post up a smaller, weaker guard in the right matchup. But this is his reality. There’s no denying or getting around it. His mind, toughness, and experience matter as much to Villanova now as his skills do.

“Beyond being one of the most intelligent players, one of the most talented players, he also knows everything that we do,” Neptune said. “He’s a great leader. He understands the game plan and what this program is about. He’s always been a multifaceted player, a guy who can do a lot. It just depends on matchups, who we’re playing, what we’re looking to do for that specific game. It’s definitely a luxury to have a guy like that who can do so much.”

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Moore, Dixon, and Chris Arcidiacono are the last remaining members of that ‘22 Final Four team still playing at ‘Nova. No telling how much longer. The Wildcats are 17-14, a bubble team at best for the NCAA Tournament, in need of at least two wins this week to get in. DePaul is 3-28, hasn’t won yet in 2024, and should be a cakewalk Wednesday. Beyond that, Justin Moore goes day by day until the season and his time at Villanova end again. It can’t be any harder than the last time.