Villanova basketball: Wildcats on NCAA Tournament bubble, Joe Lunardi says

The Villanova men’s basketball team woke up Jan. 13, fresh off a dominant victory over DePaul, in a pretty good spot. The Wildcats were 4-1 in the Big East, 11-5 overall, and firmly in the NCAA Tournament as a No. 7 seed, according to Joe Lunardi’s bracketology at ESPN.

A lot has changed in a little more than two weeks.

The Wildcats, after a crushing, double-overtime defeat at Butler on Saturday, have lost four straight to slip to 4-5 in the Big East, eighth in the conference.

Worse, Lunardi’s latest bracket update Monday morning had Villanova at No. 69 in a 68-team field. The first team out. Welcome back to the NIT.

The good thing for Villanova is that the season doesn’t end on Jan. 30, and the Wildcats have a chance for another signature win Tuesday night vs. No. 9 Marquette.

Must win? Not necessarily, but it would certainly help the cause.

Here’s a look at where Villanova is in its quest to avoid missing the NCAA Tournament for the second consecutive season under second-year coach Kyle Neptune.

Where the Wildcats stand

On any particular day, the bracket is just a snapshot in time. It can change daily.

According to Lunardi, his final spot in the tournament Monday morning came down to three teams: Boise State, Gonzaga, and Villanova. The way it shook out: Boise State in, the other two out.

Gonzaga has more victories (15) than Boise (14) and Villanova (11), but Gonzaga’s best win was over San Francisco, a team that isn’t in the tournament field.

“[Quality] wins have generally counted more in this era than the number,” Lunardi said. “Then it kind of became, well, you look at them right now, — who’s playing better? That was easier, but not in Villanova’s favor.”

There was another element to Monday’s snapshot. On Saturday, Richmond knocked off No. 21 Dayton to move into the top spot in the Atlantic 10. On the bracket, that moved Richmond into the field as the automatic qualifier for the A-10 while Dayton moved into an at-large bid.

“Villanova is in if Dayton wins,” Lunardi said.

The Flyers will go to Brooklyn as favorites to win the A-10 Tournament, and they may win, but there will be bid stealers elsewhere.

“Somewhere, somehow, that weekend, on the average there is one or two bid thieves every year,” Lunardi said.

“It isn’t necessarily going to be in the A-10. It could be Charlotte in the American. Some people think Grand Canyon [Western Athletic] is in. Suppose they lose. Suppose the eighth-place team in the Big Ten wins their tournament.”

All of that is to say, the Wildcats might have been out on Monday morning. But they also might have been in. Flip a coin.

How many Big East wins will do it?

The good part about being in a power conference, Lunardi said, is “every game could move the needle.”

There’s a big needle-moving opportunity Tuesday night at Finneran Pavilion against Marquette. A win would likely put the Wildcats firmly back into the field. But this is the same Golden Eagles team that rolled Villanova on Jan. 15, scoring 60 points in the paint, to start the Wildcats’ four-game losing streak.

A loss wouldn’t be catastrophic. There are enough winnable games left on the schedule to make up the difference. How many will do it? Lunardi said 10-10 in the Big East would put Villanova “right there” in the mix for an at-large bid.

“They almost can’t get to 10 without a pop or two — that’s good,” Lunardi said. “It’s going to be against a team that’s in the field.”

There are 11 games left, and six of them are at home. Win the home games and they’re probably in the field. Stumble against Marquette, and that could be made up with a road win at Georgetown (1-8), a team Villanova still plays twice (Feb. 16 and 27).

Go 9-11 in conference and it gets pretty dicey. It would certainly mean no bye on the first night of the Big East Tournament at Madison Square Garden, but that could work to Villanova’s advantage. Going 9-11 and then winning two games in New York, reaching the conference semifinal, might do it, Lunardi said.

“If the goal is to sneak into the NCAA field as opposed to winning the Big East Tournament, that extra game could help them,” Lunardi said. “But the scary part is, that game could end their season.”

That’s life on the bubble.

‘On the edge’

There’s a solution to avoid bubble talk. It’s to go 7-4 (or better) the rest of the way to finish 11-9 in the Big East. It’s not that hard to find seven wins. There are the two games with Georgetown. There are two with a spiraling Seton Hall team missing its best player. There’s a home game against Butler and a winnable road game at Xavier. There’s a home game against Creighton, which is No. 13 but which the Wildcats beat on the road.

It may seem like a lifetime ago, but Villanova had wins over North Carolina (now No. 3) and Texas Tech (No. 20) in the Bahamas just two months ago.

“They’re the team that went 3-0 in that tournament and 0-3 in the Big 5 ... and won at Creighton and got crushed at St. John’s,” Lunardi said.

In other words, a team that’s right on the edge. Some days it has it, some days it doesn’t.

“I wouldn’t get hung up on the fact that you’re last in or first out at this point,” Lunardi said. “It’s more like, ‘Holy crap, we’re right on the edge of the waterfall. Are we staying up here or are we going over?’ ”

Needless to say, make sure the life jackets are nearby.