Villanova and Kyle Neptune were thisclose to disaster against DePaul. They’re even closer to missing the NCAAs.
The Wildcats pulled it out late. Had they lost, their coach's job would have been in jeopardy. No doubt.
NEW YORK — Has a team ever won a conference tournament game and, in doing so, hurt its chances of qualifying for the NCAA Tournament? How often does a coach walk the line between a loss that surely would ignite a campaign to push him out of his job and a victory that keeps his club’s highest hopes alive? Kyle Neptune could have Big-Bad-Wolfed Madison Square Garden’s walls to the ground late Wednesday night after Villanova survived DePaul, 58-57, in the first round of the Big East Tournament. That’s how deep his huffs and puffs and exhale were. That’s how close he and the Wildcats came to disaster.
Yes, Villanova survived. So did he. Imagine it. Imagine if Villanova had lost, the scope of it, the aftershock. DePaul was 3-28 ahead of Wednesday. The Blue Demons had, quite literally, not won a game this year. They were 0-20 in the Big East this season. Their last win was on Dec. 30, against Chicago State. Their last win against a team outside Illinois was more than three months ago. And there they were, up two with less than 10 seconds left in regulation, and only Justin Moore’s pull-up three-pointer with 8.8 to go separated the Wildcats from humiliation at the hands of one of the worst teams in college basketball and from all that would have followed.
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What would have followed? Oh, dear. Villanova went 17-17 last season, Neptune’s first in the aftermath of the quasi-dynasty that Jay Wright built, and it entered this tournament needing at least two victories to give itself any reasonable chance of making the big dance. A 17-14 regular season was enough cause for questions. Getting beaten in the Big East’s first round? By DePaul? As patient as Villanova’s decision-makers tend to be when it comes to a coach’s status and future, there would have been reason to believe Neptune might not have made it to the fall. A former Big East employee, on a podcast Wednesday, referred to Villanova’s “three-million-dollar roster,” the NIL output that it cost the program’s boosters for this collection of players, and the pressure on Neptune and his staff to justify that investment. Patience has never had a shorter shelf life, not in this new environment of college athletics.
“We understand the sports game,” Neptune said. “Fans are great because they draw interest. They make this game popular. It’s why I’ve got a job. It’s why this is here in Madison Square Garden. But we’ve got to focus on us. We’ve got to focus on the next game.”
» READ MORE: Sielski: Justin Moore gets another ending for Villanova. It has to be easier than his last one.
Crazy as it sounds based on its performance Wednesday, Villanova can win its next game — Thursday night against Marquette in the quarterfinals — and maybe should. Tyler Kolek, the conference’s player of the year, won’t play because of an oblique injury, and the silver lining for Neptune and the Wildcats is that they can’t be any worse than they were against DePaul. “Thank God for Justin Moore,” Neptune said. He was speaking for everyone affiliated with Villanova. He might as well have been speaking for himself.