Villanova has a rich history in college basketball.
The Augustinian Catholic university, a distinguished member of the Philadelphia Big 5 located on the Philadelphia Main Line, has had great coaches like Jack Kraft, Rollie Massimino and Jay Wright; ground breaking recruiters like Joe Walters, George Raveling, Paul Hewitt, and a litany of great college players, beginning with Paul Arizin and extending through Hubie White, Wally Jones, Jim Washington, Billy Melchionni, Johnny Jones, Howard Porter, Chris Ford, Tom Ingelsby, Keith Herron, Rory Sparrow John Pinone, Ed Pinckney, Harold Pressley, Doug West, Kerry Kittles, Alvin Williams, Michael Bradley, Randy Foye, Kyle Lowrey, Scottie Reynolds and Dante Cunningham, not to mention 100 percent graduation rate for all players who stayed four years since the Massimino era, and three trips to the NCAA Final Four in 1971, 1985 and 2009, including a national championship in 1985.
The Cats have been regulars in the AP Top 25, climbing as high as No. 2 six times, including the final regular season poll last season.
But until last week, they had never reached the summit. It’s hard to believe. The 22-3 Cats not only got to No. 1, but held onto the top spot again this week, receiving 44 of 65 votes to easy top second ranked Kansas, which jumped five spots after a week in which four of the top five teams lost.
“I got here in 2001 and we’ve been No. 2 a couple of times and every time we were there, people would say that to me, “When are you going to be No. 1?” Wright said. “So I knew it. Everyone says Villanova has never been No. 1, but we actually wore No. 1 in 1985 at a time when it’s most important to be No. 1, after we beat Georgetown to win the tournament.
“It’s definitely an interesting experience.”
Villanova is the first non-BCS school to be No. 1 since Gonzaga, a WCAC school from Spokane, Wash. that was ranked first by AP for two weeks in 2013.
The Cats became the sixth team to occupy the No. 1 ranking in this parity driven season, along with blue bloods North Carolina, Kentucky, Michigan State, Kansas and Oklahoma. This was a huge break through for the new Big East, which has been attempting to maintain a foothold among the elite conferences after defections took brand names like Syracuse, Pitt, Notre Dame, Boston College, West Virginia and Louisville. The last time a team from the Big East was ranked No. 1 was Louisville, who held that spot for a week during the regular season in 2013 when they won the national championship.
The original Big East was formed in 1979 and included Syracuse, Boston College, Providence, Connecticut, St. John’s, Seton Hall and Georgetown. Villanova joined the following season. It didn’t take long for the primarily Catholic Eastern League with no football to take off. Fueled by ESPN, a fledging cable sports network, it became the hottest league in the country. Georgetown, Villanova, Syracuse and Connecticut all won national championships. Providence, St. John’s and Seton Hall all advanced to the Final Four.
The various incarnations of the Big East have produced teams that been ranked No. 1 by AP a total of 28 weeks, with Syracuse holding the spot 14 times and Georgetown 12. Both Georgetown in 1984-85 and UConn 1998-99 were ranked No. 1 for 10 straight weeks.
And the league produced legends like Patrick Ewing of Georgetown and Chris Mullin, who played on both the 1984 Olympic team and the 1992 Dream Team. Each team needed a minimum of three future NBA players if it wanted to compete for a conference championship and the league was so good in 1985, three Big East teams– Georgetown, St. John’s and Villanova– advanced to the Final Four in Lexington.
Times has changed and the conference has evolved out of necessity.
The newly re-configured 10 team Big East– now an all basketball league– has only been together for three years since July, 2013 and now has a distinct Midwest flavor to go with its Eastern roots. The league no longer has a stranglehold on the best high school prospects in the big cities of the East and only one team– Xavier– has made it to a Sweet 16.
With a rash of players leaving early for the NBA, it has opened the door for a team like Villanova, which is well coached by the dapper, GQ dressed Wright and has a history of developing its players, to reach new heights and possibly play its NCAA tournament games at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn and Wells Fargo Center in South Philadelphia, just 22 miles from campus.
This is not 2015 where Kentucky, which had four players– Karl Anthony Towns, Willie Cauley-Stein, Trey Lyles and Devin Books — selected in the lottery of the NBA draft and six players taken overall, was a dominant force, finishing the regular season unbeaten and winning 38 straight games before losing to Wisconsin in the national semi-finals.
This Villanova team may not have any NBA draft picks and only has one lock pro– 6-7 redshirt freshman forward Mikal Bridges– who has the length to guard five positions and has the versatility to become an athletic wing at the next level. In all fairness, 6-6 junior wing Josh Hart and 6-10 senior center Daniel Ochefu could make NBA rosters and senior guard Ryan Arcidiacono could play in Italy. The Cats only have one McDonald’s All America– 6-2 freshman point guard Jalen Brunson– on their roster.
What they do have are solid program players like Ochefu and Arcidiacono, who stay four years and graduate. They also have five starters — junior forward Kris Jenkins, junior wing Josh Hart, Ryan Arch, Ochefu and Brunson– who are averaging double figures and playing suffocating pressure defense, limiting opposing teams to just 61 points. Being No. 1 this year is more of a team thing, where chemistry, basketball IQ and experience can trump sheer talent and older players like Bridges, Ochefu and 6-8 junior backup Darryl Reynolds have blossomed. Ochefu had 25 points and 9 rebounds in a victory over St. John’s last weekend before a near sellout crowd at Wells Fargo Feb. 13, just four days after coming back from a concussion that forced him to miss three games. Reynolds, a one time project who averaged 1.4 points as a sophomore, exploded for 19 points and 10 rebounds in a huge win at Providence Feb. 6 while filling in for the injured Ochefu.
“I think there are a lot of teams like that this year,” Wright said. “Even the Kentucky team has some older guys. Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa. Older guys. I think it’s good for college basketball. Last year, we had a team like Kentucky with younger players. This year, you’ve got older guys. And it makes it excitable. Everybody is either thinking about beating those dominant teams or anybody’s got a shot.”
This is not likely the wave of the future.
But in a year where college basketball has been turned upside down, Villanova has been a model of consistency with a 12-1 record in the Big East, a league with two Top 10 teams and a league that is balanced in the middle with Providence, Seton Hall, Butler and Creighton. Media voters took that into account after Oklahoma and North Carolina– the two teams ranked ahead of them in the week– both lost the week that ended Feb. 6. “I think it’s just one of those years where there is no dominant team. We’re No. 1 and there’s two teams that beat us– Oklahoma and Virginia– ranked below us,” Wright said.
“I think it will make for an unbelievable NCAA tournament.”
Ironically, despite losing multi-year starters Ochefu and Arcidiacono, Villanova– who hasn’t lost a star underclassmen since 2006 when Lowrey, an NBA All Star, left after his sophomore year in 2006 — could actually be better next season with 6-10 recruit Omari Spellman, a fifth year, potential one and done center from St. Thomas More in Connecticut who has been chosen to play in the Jordan Brand Classic at Barclays; and a slimmed down 6-7 wing Eric Paschall, a transfer from Fordham who was the Atlantic 10 2014 Rookie of the Year, who will join a roster with Jenkins, Hart, Brunson, Bridges, Reynolds, junior guard Phil Booth, a valuable sixth man; and 6-8 forward Tim Delaney and 6-5 guard Dante DiVicenzo, who are both sitting out as medical redshirt freshmen.
How long Villanova can hold on to its lofty status this season is anyone’s guess. The Cats have an intense city series’ rivalry game this week against Temple at a sold out Liacouras Center in North Philly and then travel to Xavier in another sold out game next week. “We always get great effort from the Big 5 teams,” Wright said. “The reason we’ve so excited about the Temple game this year– we never thought we’d be No. 1. But it’s a good game for us to have because we know we’re going to go into a really tough environment against someone who know us and we know it’s going to be a battle. It’s a national caliber road game.”
As for Xavier, Villanova defeated the Musketeers, 95-64, earlier this season at the Pavilion but the Musketeers played most of game without injured starting point guard Edmond Sumner and revenge is always a factor in rematches.
But, for the moment, the is a feel good moment for a school and a league trying to reestablish its glory days.
