Is Villanova a Final Four team? When you win 2 NCAA titles, that’s always the question. | Mike Jensen

You convince yourself … no Final Four, no chance, no way.

Then Villanova faces a team that had earlier made Jay Wright’s team look not just bad, but ordinary, and the Wildcats completely dismiss St. John’s in a rematch.

Maybe there can still be a long run for the Wildcats in March?

Slow down.

Five years ago, it would have been framed differently. Can the Wildcats get past the second round?

Now …

Can they get to the Final Four? Could they win it all again?

“It’s a new challenge to deal with, for the coaches and the players,” Villanova’s coach said earlier this week, that difference in framing. Same players, playing the same way, with the same results. We now see it through a different lens. Two NCAA titles will do that.

“It is a good problem to have,” Wright said. “But it is a challenge. You lose one game and the players feel terrible, they feel like they’re letting everybody down, they feel like they’re letting the previous players down. The previous players are upset when you lose games.”

Wright said that part half-joking, maybe. But the current players showed up with their own expectations. They’ve already been robbed of one March by the pandemic.

“We really do try to keep things in perspective in our team,” Wright said. “We try.”

» READ MORE: Villanova controls its rematch against St. John’s from the outset, rolls to an 81-58 victory

This group, for the record (now 15-3), has the talent and know-how to win any one game, against any opponent, right up to and including top-ranked Gonzaga. Nobody would be excited to see Villanova next on the schedule. This group brings one great statistical gift to the table — Collin Gillespie and company lead the nation in lowest turnover percentage. Combine that with a strong defense and expectations would skyrocket.

Instead, this group went into Tuesday ranked 303rd at defending the three.

That’s simply not a Final Four stat. You don’t have to lead the nation in it. The 2016 champs were 135th at defending the three. The 2018 champs were 15th at it. But 303rd isn’t going to get it done. Giving up 36.9% shooting going into Tuesday was Villanova’s highest three-point defensive percentage since 2013.

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Let’s also point out the Wildcats were 339th going into Tuesday in blocked shots, and 270th in steals. It’s not like the defense has been finding other advantages.

Can it get better? You saw it Tuesday against St. John’s, and against Connecticut before then. Maybe this team isn’t quick enough to control things defensively. When Wright and his players talk about practicing for quicker St. John’s by using six scout-team players on defense, that’s a sign.

Except the collective basketball IQ for this current group is off the charts. If they don’t have the collective foot speed to get into passing lanes and close out on threes, or have an X factor off the bench, someone like Mikal Bridges or Donte DiVincenzo — future first-rounders who were first off the bench in 2016 and ’18, respectively — Wright still is tinkering in that department.

Increased minutes for defensive stalwart Brandon Slater, now three straight games over 20 minutes, shows where Wright’s thinking is. (Two straight Slater fast-break dunks off defensive plays showed the rewards.) Also, 11 minutes for Bryan Antoine suggests an awareness that a longer, quicker guy out there can shake things up defensively, even as he’s still figuring things out. We’d expected going into the season that Antoine might be that X factor guy, starting or off the bench, before another shoulder injury sidelined him.

“We’re trying to develop them in the middle of the season — at the end of the season,” Wright said after the St. John’s game. “It’s crazy.”

Not crazy, not this year.

It’s easy to buy the idea that if Saddiq Bey hadn’t proven himself so NBA-ready last season, this group would have been ticketed for a longer ride. That’s hoops these days and Bey already has proven he made a great decision to move on.

For this group, getting to an Elite Eight would be a significant achievement. There’s nothing to dislike about the 2020-21 Wildcats, they put in the work. In years past maybe they would have been given an underdog label, with the fan base cheering a Sweet 16 appearance, a trip to the second weekend. Instead, this program has offered spoils.

You want to say they’ve got a shooter’s chance in any NCAA tournament game, sure, that’s the sport. Except that ability to control pace and work long possessions without turnovers swings everything Villanova’s way if it gets any shooting advantage.

When the other guys are cold, game over. St. John’s, in desperate need of a W for NCAA consideration, made 3 of 23 threes, never got in it. Moral of the story: You don’t make threes by settling for threes against Villanova. Just that one game moved Villanova up to 264th in defending the three.

Can Villanova be a Final Four team? Any opinion, of course, is outside noise. Unlike college football, where opinions help decide who gets to even compete for a title, hoops generally allows such questions to answer themselves on the court.

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