Villanova basketball clawed back to .500. A few observations on how the Wildcats got here.

There’s a popular refrain when talking to Kyle Neptune and the players on his Villanova men’s basketball team.

“The goal is to be the best team we can possibly be by the end of the season.”

They deliver it with an almost robotic frequency, one of the many holdovers from the Jay Wright era on campus.

It’s the goal of every team, of course, to be at its best in March. But for this version of the Wildcats, it feels a little more literal. New coach. New freshmen. Injuries to start the season to a pair of potential starters.

Put all of those things in the blender and maybe the 2-5 start shouldn’t have been quite as shocking as Villanova fans — and the national media — made it out to be.

Likewise, winning three straight after adding freshman Cam Whitmore, a potential NBA lottery pick, to the mix should also have come without a surprise.

» READ MORE: With five-star freshman Cam Whitmore healthy, Villanova’s ‘room for growth’ just got a lot bigger

We’ve seen two versions of Villanova through 10 games, and a third one is still out there somewhere when Justin Moore returns from Achilles tendon surgery he underwent in March.

How much different have those two versions looked? To the eye, it’s pretty clear.

Penn coach Steve Donahue gave voice to it after Villanova’s 70-59 win over the Quakers last week. Donahue said his Penn team “felt” the difference in Villanova’s physicality. Whitmore, at 6-foot-7 and 230 pounds, is going to be the most athletic player on the court during most of Villanova’s games. That was obvious during Saturday night’s 77-56 win over Boston College in Newark, N.J., where Whitmore scored 19 and grabbed seven rebounds while being a plus-20 during the 26 minutes he played.

“They had a good team without him, and obviously they’re a lot better with him,” B.C. coach Earl Grant said.

Villanova has won three straight after a slow start had many on the message boards wondering if the Wildcats’ first-year coach was in over his head.

Overreaction? From sports fans? A tale as old as time.

The Wildcats have, in some ways, changed the narrative with one more nonconference game (Saturday at St. Joseph’s) on the schedule before Big East play begins next Wednesday vs. St. John’s.

No, they’re no Big East favorite (Connecticut and Creighton have shorter odds to win the conference’s regular-season crown). But the NCAA Tournament is still in play, no matter how far-fetched some may have felt those chances were just two weeks ago.

Here are three observations about the Wildcats through their first 10 games.

» READ MORE: ‘He was himself’: Jay Wright shines in his CBS debut at a familiar place

Neptune says it all the time: Villanova isn’t worried about where its offense will come from. The Wildcats have shotmakers. Caleb Daniels can give you 20 almost any night. Whitmore brings immense talent to Villanova. A lot of the team’s early-season scoring woes can be chalked up to jump-shot variance. Against Delaware State, a team Villanova struggled to beat, the Wildcats simply missed open shots all night.

KenPom ranks Villanova 13th in offensive efficiency (points scored per 100 possessions, adjusted for opponent), but 121st in defense.

That number is on the rise. In the three games since Whitmore debuted, Villanova opponents are connecting on 33% of their three-point attempts, down from 38% in the seven games without him. Also, the Wildcats are allowing 60.3 points per game with Whitmore in the lineup, down from 71 without him.

Granted, Villanova has played weaker competition in Whitmore’s three games than it faced in Portland, Ore., and at Michigan State, but the improvements are real.

Neptune will keep saying this, too: Villanova is young. While the Wildcats have three veteran players who started in a Final Four eight months ago, most of their rotation players are either freshmen or inexperienced.

“We’re not a finished product,” Neptune said.

We saw at times Saturday night what Villanova can be capable of. Freshman Mark Armstrong had the best game of his young career. He was all over the floor in 27 minutes of action and filled the stat sheet, tallying 13 points to go with seven rebounds, three assists, and two steals.

Freshman Brendan Hausen is proving already he can be a reliable three-point shooter.

Then there’s Whitmore, who has made an immediate impact. He hasn’t played enough minutes to qualify yet, but his KenPom offensive rating for his usage would put him in the company of the best offensive players in the nation.

Here’s the scary thing for opposing teams: He’s still going to get better.

“Playing at Villanova is kind of difficult,” Whitmore said. “I’m still learning the defense and still learning the offense a little bit, where I’m at on the floor and the specifics. I still have a lot of learning to do.”

Villanova has been a difficult team to project. The Wildcats started the season ranked No. 16 in the Associated Press top 25 but quickly fell out after losing to Temple.

A miserable, three-loss trip to Portland then changed up some of the math.

Villanova’s KenPom numbers were OK on offense and bad on defense. The analytics site had the Wildcats projected to finish at 15-16. After three straight wins, that has only changed slightly: to 16-15.

TeamRankings, another statistical website, gives Villanova a 22% chance at making the NCAA Tournament.

The road ahead is difficult. It’s quite possible that the Wildcats enter the Big East Tournament in March needing to win it to get in. But Creighton suddenly looks a bit more beatable. And we’ll see where the Wildcats are on Dec. 28 when they travel to Hartford to face a UConn team that is undefeated and ranked No. 3 at the moment.