When it comes to support for a reeling Villanova, TJ Bamba wants to know where the ‘real fans’ are

The Wildcats guard wonders: How can a team kick-start a resurgence if its biggest support has already given up on them and their second-year head coach?

by Colin Beazley

Published Feb. 4, 2024, 5:00 a.m. ET

There were boos at the Finneran Pavilion at least twice during the Villanova-Marquette game on Tuesday night: scattered dissent when Kyle Neptune’s name was announced during introductions, then louder late in the first half when the Villanova coach called a timeout with his Wildcats trailing, 23-9.

Senior guard TJ Bamba heard them. He didn’t appreciate it.

Bamba started by agreeing it affects the team’s confidence.

“This is a family, you know. We’re a family,” Bamba told The Inquirer. “We’re on a five-game losing streak, yeah, but it’s not, it’s definitely not Coach Neptune, it’s not just our fault. It’s a collective thing. We’re a family. When you go through the ups, you want to go through the ups together. When you go through the downs, you’ve got to go through the downs together.”

Bamba, who transferred from Washington State, has been a bright spot in the struggles. He scored 24 points against the Golden Eagles, including four threes. He has scored in double figures in four consecutive games. Unfortunately for him, some of his best play as a Wildcat has come during Villanova’s longest losing streak since 2011.

After an uneven start to the season, the team began conference play 4-1, but Villanova has fallen to 11-10 overall and 4-6 in the Big East. Bamba preached patience.

“Every day, we come in here, we’re working our butts off and trying to get better,” Bamba said. “And we understand that where we are today won’t be where we are tomorrow or next week. So we understand you have to go through these tough situations, really put your back against the wall, and you’ve got to dig yourself out.”

Still, the Wildcats went to the Final Four two years ago. It’s certainly understandable that fans would worry about a team trending to the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble for the second consecutive year.

‘We don’t respect that’

Bamba hopes those same fans will “contribute nothing but positivity” and said it would be “meaningful” to the team and its focus. But he couldn’t get the memories of being booed off his mind.

“Because [on the] contrary, you have the fans booing our coach who we’re going out there, throwing it all on the line for,” Bamba said. “And we don’t respect that. So if you’re like a real fan base, you’re really into the program, I feel like you should support your players [and] your coaches no matter what, no matter what they’re going through. That’s the way I feel. That’s the way we all feel. Because we love each other. From [Coach Neptune] to everybody, managers, anybody, we all love each other and we’re all willing to go out there and do what we need to do for each other.”

Skeptics will contend that Bamba and the rest of his teammates aren’t being paid significant sums courtesy of name, image, and likeness agreements just to love one another. However, it does raise the question of whether the boos are productive.

“Just to hear that before the game, it’s not a positive,” Bamba said. “It’s not a positive at all. And other teams feed off it. Like [Marquette’s All-American guard] Tyler Kolek I believe, he said something about it, how that inspired them.”

Kolek mentioned hearing Neptune get booed. “We looked at each other, like, ‘These fans lost confidence in him? Let’s go at ‘em. Let’s take that confidence,’ ” Kolek said postgame Tuesday. “That adds something to us.”

For his part, Neptune understands the boos. He said postgame that he didn’t hear them during introductions, though he grasps the situation.

“That’s one thing about coaching Villanova: We’ve got really passionate fans,” Neptune said. “They really want what’s best for the team and sometimes they voice it. For us, we’re just trying to go out there and play as hard as we possibly can. That passion, in where we’re doing well, we know that we get it the other way.”

Bamba has also seen the pressure outside, saying, “Negativity, it don’t come in here. It stays out there.” But he ended his response with a question.

“So it’s like, what type of fans are y’all if y’all doing that?”

In the Marquette game, there was some negativity in the crowd at the beginning of the game. There were some boos at the beginning when Neptune was announced. There were some boos at the end of the slow start. Is that something that affects the team’s confidence?

“We understand that where we are today won’t be where we are tomorrow or next week,” said Bamba. ”So just being able to have some fans who understand that and contribute nothing but positivity, that definitely would be meaningful, that would be helpful to us [and] our focus.”