Big East Basketball: Ranking best homecourt advantages for 2020-21 season
By Max Marmitt
4. Villanova Wildcats Home Court(s): Wells Fargo Center/Finneran Pavilion
If we’re basing this off of which team is the hardest to win against home or away, there’s no question it’s Villanova. There are so many superlatives I could say about this team, but simply put, Villanova is the king of the Big East.
Villanova doesn’t play many games at the Wells Fargo Center, but sharing that stadium with the Philadelphia 76ers and Philadelphia Flyers, it’s another top-tier stadium in college basketball. Playing most of their games in “The Pavilion,” the Wildcats sell out every game creating an intimate atmosphere in a capacity of 6,501 fans. With national championship aspirations basically every year, you can guarantee that the fans will be passionate about providing an atmosphere that is very noisy and will make the other teams uncomfortable, feeling like the fans are on top of them in arguably the best small stadium in the conference.
With an unbelievable home court record of 97-9, Villanova never lost more than one home game in a single season during the new Big East until 2018. Let me emphasize that record… only nine losses at home in seven seasons! The Villanova fanbase makes their presence known at the NCAA tournament as well, having thousands and thousands of fans cheering them on every game in March.
Villanova has never finished worse than 2nd in the Big East, winning the Big East regular-season 6/7 years (tied with Creighton/Seton Hall last year) and winning the Big East conference tournament four times (no conference tournament last year due to COVID-19). They’ve also been in a class of their own with March Madness success. They’ve been a 1 or 2 seed every year besides 2019 (6 seed) and won the 2016 and 2018 national championships. Everybody remembers the Kris Jenkins buzzer-beater to defeat North Carolina in the 2016 national championship but in 2018 there were no heroics needed as Villanova dominated every team by 12-26 points to repeat as champions.
The amount of star power Villanova has had over the years is endless. They have sent plenty of players to the NBA and have had several AP-All Americans. Jalen Brunson was the 2018 AP Player of the Year, and Josh Hart was extremely close to doing the same in 2017. Too many people forget about Villanova’s earliest new Big East stars like Darrun Hilliard, Daniel Ochefu, James Bell, and JayVaughn Pinkston because of an avalanche of new stars like Donte DiVincenzo, Ryan Arcidiacono, Mikal Bridges, Eric Paschall, Omari Spellman, Phil Booth, Collin Gillespie, Jermaine Samuels, Saddiq Bey, and definitely others including ones I’ve listed above.
Jay Wright has developed a discipline program that has even the youngest guys usually playing well beyond their years. It’s safe to say you definitely need your A-game to defeat Villanova on the road because the odds of winning at The Pavillion is razor-thin. More times than not, you’re going to have to play your A-game to beat Villanova. Period. The Wildcats have dominated on a conference and national level recently, and they will continue to be the alpha of the Big East.