The Villanova women’s team, always looking for an edge, found it in the offseason

From the outside, you can try to guess. Players returning, players lost. What will Villanova’s women’s program look like for the next season? Even from the inside, it can be more of a guess than you’d think. Could Villanova’s 2022-23 team be as good as last season’s version with the second- and third-leading scorers gone? Villanova’s coaches wondered.

“Maddy Siegrist came in here, she would tell [the coaches] all the time, ‘No, we’re going to be better,’” Wildcats coach Denise Dillon said last week, sitting in her Davis Center office. “We’re like, what? We always say, when it comes from peers, and they’re with these guys every day …”

If Siegrist saw something in the current mix of teammates, call it kindred spirits. If you stipulate that college athletes have full-time jobs, and they all work, and most work really hard — there’s something else in play here, beyond the obvious talent involved.

“That’s the baseline — everyone does work hard,” Dillon said. “But then what’s your edge? What else are you putting into it?”

» READ MORE: The Maddy Siegrist Show part of March Madness

Villanova, now 29-6 — up from 24-9 last season — is into the second round of the NCAA Tournament, hosting Florida Gulf Coast on Monday (7 p.m., ESPNU). Another hinge point where Siegrist’s words come into play, where better could mean into the Sweet 16, after a second-round NCAA exit last season.

Historically, Siegrist has found her own edge. You ask teammates, who works hardest? Craziest worker?

“Definitely Maddy Siegrist,” Bella Runyan said the other day.

Still is?

“Yeah, 100 percent, it’s insa …,” Runyan said, sitting in front of her locker the day before the NCAA Tournament began. She kind of cut off the word.

“We all look at her like she’s crazy sometimes,” Runyan continued. “We get back sometimes from dinner, it’s like 10 p.m., she’s like, ‘Yeah, I’m bored, I’m going to get shots up.’ That’s what she does when she’s bored.”

When Siegrist broke Villanova’s all-time scoring record, Matt Fraschilla, now a Harvard men’s assistant coach, put up a tweet congratulating her. Fraschilla had been a video coordinator on Jay Wright’s ‘Nova staff the previous three years, a graduate manager before that. Fraschilla noted: “Our offices shared a wall with the women’s practice gym … and I swear anytime I was in the office late and a ball was bouncing, we all knew when we looked, it would be Maddy getting shots up. She’s earned it.”

OK, Siegrist working like crazy — got it. While that might explain how Siegrist is now the leading scorer in women’s basketball, it does not fully explain how Villanova jumped up this season, hosting NCAA games for the first time since 1988.

Christina Dalce, making a huge leap this season, providing a crucial inside presence. That took hours that we don’t see, with coaches and on her own. Or Runyan, for instance. Dillon thinks back to losing to Connecticut in the Big East final. The next day, maybe mid-morning, Dillon saw Runyan heading into the Pavilion.

“I’m thinking — we just went three games in a row,” Dillon said. “I just said, ‘Bell, fantastic, but, you know, just get some reps in, don’t push it.’”

» READ MORE: Fewer Philly-area players left in NCAA tournament

“I wasn’t really proud of how I played at the Big East just in general,” Runyan said of what was going on there. “My defense was there like it’s always going to be. But I feel like I took it a little personal, that I could have contributed a lot more. I definitely slept in and got the rest that I needed. I know how to recover. But I just needed to get my mind right and get some shots up. I needed to see the ball go through the hoop because it wasn’t happening for me.”

Coincidentally or not, Runyan made 3 of 4 three-pointers in Saturday’s NCAA first-round game, her 13 points in 22 minutes the second-highest point total behind Siegrist’s 35 points as Villanova took out Cleveland State, 76-59.

The work often starts with a conversation.

“Last year, she would come into the office often,” Dillon said of Dalce, the 6-foot-2 sophomore out of Rutgers Prep who grabbed 16 rebounds against Cleveland State. “Unfortunately, last year she went through trial things. It was mono, it was COVID, it was her knee. ... One thing after the next. But she continued to come in the office and ask, ‘What do I need to do? What can I do?’ ... When you have players coming into your office and having those conversations, you know you can throw a lot at them.”

As a team, Dillon said, the conversation all season was about how every practice was “preparation to beat UConn,” not just the next opponent on the schedule.

“Them wanting more, just wanting to be better,” Dillon said of what she has seen from this group. “When a team makes a decision to be good, and then climb into the ranks of great — as coaches, you’re guiding them along and demanding that excellence. They thrive off it. ... It starts with conversations with individual players. What do you want? Do you want to be average? Do you want to be good? Do you want to be great?”

Villanova’s most consistent second scoring option this season has been point guard Lucy Olsen, averaging 12.2 points a game, up from 7.0 as a freshman. Dillon never doubted the work ethic with this player.

» READ MORE: Villanova beats Cleveland State in NCAA first round

Right after last season, Dillon remembers telling their players to shut it down for a week. In the Davis Center, she followed the sound of a bouncing ball early one morning to Olsen, her freshman year just finished.

“What are you doing?” Dillion remembers asking.

“It’s my workout,” Olsen said.

“No, when I said shut down, you know, shut down. Off your feet. Nothing.”

According to Dillon, a degree of incredulousness crossed Olsen’s face.

“It was almost like she couldn’t deal with telling her she couldn’t do it,” Dillon said.

The coach offered respect in relating this.

“She’ll go play pickup games anywhere,” Dillon said. “She never shies away from — you have some players, ‘Oh, I could get hurt.’”

Olsen suggests the fun hasn’t been lost within this group of kindred spirits.

“In high school, some people just play to play,” Olsen said. “When you get here, it’s like EVERYONE wants to be the best, everyone wants to get in the gym every day. I’m like, ‘Oh, you guys want to go play two-on-two?’ Everyone will always be up for it.”

Maddie Burke, Villanova’s third-leading scorer, has the perspective of a first-year Villanova player, transferring in from Penn State.

“Coming in over the summer, most of the girls always wanted to play pickup, always wanted to be shooting,” Burke said. “Even off days, asking for extra workouts.”

A bond is established in the summer, Burke said. Going to play two-on-two? Let’s make it three-on-three, I’ll play.

Who’s the craziest worker?

“Maddy and Lucy, for sure,” Burke said. “They’re always playing with the guys, always playing with the practice players.”

In early January, talking to a reporter after a game, Dillon showed a text she had just gotten from Olsen’s father, who had just gotten a 10-year Facebook memory photo of his daughter clearing snow from their driveway to play a little ball.

A one-time event?

“It was not a one-time event,” Olsen said, laughing. “I don’t remember it being that big of a deal. I just wanted to go outside and shoot.”

Just getting some shots up. You never know where it might lead.

» READ MORE: The back story of Maddy Siegrist ahead of Villanova’s first round NCAA game