Upset losses haven’t diminished the stakes of Tuesday’s Villanova-St. Joe’s game. They may be higher.

It took two games for déjà vu to arrive for fans of the Villanova and St. Joseph’s men’s basketball teams.

Another season started with a modicum of hope. For Villanova fans, hope that missing out on the NCAA Tournament in each of the last two seasons was just a blip. For St. Joe’s fans, hope that this would finally be the year the Hawks make it back. But a loss to a lesser opponent in the early going rendered those feelings temporarily foolish.

For Villanova, this year’s reminder that the heyday is in the past came Wednesday, when the Wildcats allowed 90 points in a home loss to Columbia. For St. Joe’s, it was another sleepy Friday night shooting slumber, this time against Central Connecticut State.

» READ MORE: Villanova’s Matthew Hodge feels like basketball at his ‘dream school’ is being ‘taken away’ by NCAA ruling

Turn the clocks back to last November and you’ll find a similar scenario. It was another Ivy, Penn, that knocked off Villanova. Texas A&M-Commerce, a second-year Division I program, was kryptonite for the Hawks at Hagan Arena.

The difference this time around is that the Villanova-St. Joe’s rivalry game on Tuesday (5 p.m.) at Hagan Arena comes a lot closer to those wake-up calls, with the here we go again feeling so fresh. Last year, each team had righted the ship a bit before they met at Finneran Pavilion, where St. Joe’s won for the first time since 2004 behind 14 made three-pointers.

This one was circled as soon as the schedules were announced. Has there been a more anticipated Hawks-’Cats game at Hagan in recent memory? St. Joe’s has its best roster since Billy Lange took over in 2019, and a schedule that could have the Hawks in the at-large discussion come March. Villanova, too, has the best collection of players Kyle Neptune has had in his third season. Tuesday would be the first real test for both teams against an opponent with NCAA Tournament aspirations. Never mind that they are the most talented teams in the Big 5, and whichever team wins will likely be favored to win the second annual Big 5 Classic.

» READ MORE: Kyle Neptune and Villanova did the thing they couldn’t do Wednesday night. What happens next?

Those were always going to be the stakes, even before the 15-plus-point underdogs arrived in Radnor and Wynnefield last week to play spoilers. Those losses may have dimmed the anticipation a bit, but they haven’t lowered the stakes.

In fact, they may have raised them.

Each team’s resumé took a big blow last week, and each coach was in the crosshairs of those looking for change. But, continuing the theme of flashing back to last season, Villanova still found itself on the March Madness bubble as late as early March despite losing games to Penn, Drexel, and St. Joe’s. The Hawks, meanwhile, erased the Commerce loss with a win at Villanova, a home win against Ivy-favorite Princeton, and had Associated Press Top 25 voters considering their candidacy by mid-December.

Tuesday’s loser might feel the larger impact, although any analysis of at-large bids in November should come with a warning label that includes some version of: “beware of hyperbole.” Tuesday’s winner might, at least in the near term, feel a bit better about itself as a young season rolls on. Villanova plays Friday in Baltimore vs. Virginia. St. Joe’s has Penn at the Palestra on Friday before facing a Texas Tech team on Nov. 21 that is just on the outside of the AP Top 25.

While it’s easy to share the similarities between this season and last, there are plenty of differences.

Each team’s roster has been reshaped by the transfer portal and incoming freshmen. Villanova (2-1) starts three transfers, and St. Joe’s (1-1) starts two. The stars, though, are mostly the same. Villanova will go as Eric Dixon goes. St. Joe’s will go as Erik Reynolds II and Xzayvier Brown go. Both teams are still figuring out how the new puzzle pieces all fit together. Will Villanova’s defense, a major strength last year but a weakness so far this season, defend well enough against a team that shoots from anywhere? Will St. Joe’s avoid another shooting slump? Will the Hawks have an answer for Dixon? There are myriad questions and storylines that still need answering.

» READ MORE: ‘The power of now’: Billy Lange has his best St. Joe’s team yet, and expectations are high

Villanova, for its part, has had its opportunity to flip the page already. The Wildcats rolled over NJIT in a 91-54 blowout win Friday night, just a little while after the Hawks fell on Hawk Hill. A meaningful result that put the stinging Columbia loss in the rearview, or simply the result of what the flawed Wildcats are supposed to do against a bad team? Lange and Neptune both know that any one-game sample is worthless, but Tuesday might reveal or further confirm a trend.

This time last year, Lange was adamant that a loss like the one his team suffered Friday “just defines that one game. You figure out what you have to fix and then you move on. Your job as a leader is to not let it spiral into something and not overreact.”

It didn’t, and he didn’t, then. Now? We’ll find out Tuesday night. A familiar feeling of angst will arrive for some come 7 p.m. For others, maybe a renewed sense of faith. Déjà vu all over again.