NCAA Basketball: 5 biggest disappointments during the non-conference
By Adam Childs
Villanova Wildcats
Villanova is coming off of two championships in the last three years and was due for a somewhat down year, but nobody could see this coming. Head coach Jay Wright was telling people before the season started that they were young and inexperienced and this could be a year of growing pains, but many thought they could just pick it right back up and be a top ten team again this year.
It started the third game of the year in a national title rematch with Michigan. The Wolverines would beat the Wildcats by 27 points in a game that wasn’t even that close. It turns out that Michigan is pretty good and have made a bunch of people look bad. But then Villanova would lose their second straight game at home, this time to Furman. Furman has briefly been ranked but still not a game the Wildcats are used to losing.
They would right the ship and have wins over Florida State and Oklahoma State. But they also barely got by a winless (at the time) LaSalle team. They then got upset by Penn for the first time since 2002. Add a loss to top-ranked Kansas and it makes as many losses as they had all of last year.
Outside of the fight they put up against the Jayhawks, there has been very little to show that the Wildcats can play with anybody in the top 25. Maybe we should have listened to Wright about the growing pains for the Wildcats, but either way for a team expected to be a top ten team this has been a huge letdown.