Villanova Basketball: What’s wrong with Wildcats after upset loss to Furman?

Projected stars have not stepped up

Both he and fellow senior Eric Paschall were role players on last year’s title team but were expected to step up and become the stars and leaders of this season. After all, Brunson did that after Arcidiacono left and Bridges did once Josh Hart left.

Unfortunately, these two have yet to take that next step. Both played well in those first two cupcake wins but have really struggled during this losing streak.

Paschall, Villanova’s leading returning scorer, put up 18 combined points on dreadful 6-28 shooting (including 2-12 from three) in those two losses.

Booth put up slightly better numbers with 29 combined points but has not shot much better from the floor, going 10-31 overall and 5-19 from deep over the last two games.

Villanova’s offense still runs through this duo and they’re the team’s two leading scorers, but the efficiency simply isn’t there. They’re shooting a combined 25 percent from three-point range and nearly have as many combined turnovers (17) as they do assists (23).

Senior leaders are so important in college basketball and no one knows that better than Villanova. However, this duo needs to start playing much, much better if the Wildcats are going to turn this around.