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

Newcomers have not met expectations

Booth and Paschall aren’t the only players underperforming, either. A heralded class of newcomers was supposed to help the Wildcats offset their NBA Draft losses and that clearly hasn’t happened.

They welcomed in the No. 9 overall recruiting class in the country, headlined by five-star point guard and McDonald’s All-American Jahvon Quinerly. The 6-foot, 170-pounder was supposed to take over for Brunson and be this program’s next great point guard, but it was painfully obvious in the opener that he may not be ready for the college game. His playing time took a sharp decline after that and only played eight minutes against Michigan before receiving a DNP against Furman.

Wright explained his decision not to play Quinerly to reporters after the Furman loss.

"“You always want to get the young guys in. It was close and then we got down the stretch and you try to ride it out with the older guys and hope you can get through the game.”"

Quinerly has obviously been a major disappointment to this point but even Villanova’s four-star freshmen, Cole Swinder and Brandon Slater, are providing minimal contributions. Heck, Saddiq Bey, the lowest-rated recruit in this class, is actually having the biggest impact with 7.5 points and 4.0 rebounds per game.

Further hurting matters are that Albany grad transfer Joe Cremo, who was brought in to be a starter and stretch forward, has only started one game. He looks more like a guy who should be playing for Albany than someone who should be relied on for major contributions for Villanova.

All of these players have talent and Wright is excellent at getting the most out of his players. But that’s not happening right now.