Villanova Basketball: 3 takeaways from Jay Wright’s sudden retirement

2. Does Villanova have a good enough roster to make the 2023 NCAA Tournament?

It was already known that the team’s two best players (Gillespie and Samuels) weren’t coming back but despite how old and experienced this roster is on paper, technically, everyone else can return for next season.

That includes the team’s second-leading scorer Justin Moore (14.8 ppg and 2.3 apg), who suffered an Achilles injury in the Elite 8 win over Houston. Double-digit scoring guard Daniels, who averaged 10.3 ppg this past season, has the chance to return for a 6th year if he so chooses. Brandon Slater and Eric Dixon are also good frontcourt players to build around.

What will determine how successful new Coach Neptune’s first year and onward will be is how the underclassmen play. There are a few former top-100 already on the roster in Trey Patterson,  Jordan Longino, Nnanna Njoku, and the often-injured Bryan Antoine, who will be set to get more minutes next season.

There’s also the incoming recruiting class that includes four-star guards, Mark Armstrong and  Brendan Hausen, as well as top-30 overall prospect wing Cam Whitmore. He’s the guy to watch as with a new head coach, he could reopen his recruitment during the heart of transfer portal season.

Whitmore’s final three included both Illinois and North Carolina but others could get back into the picture. But even without Whitmore hypothetically, Villanova has enough talented veterans to field an NCAA Tournament-caliber team for next season. Daniels, Moore, and Dixon are a quality trio to work with and if any of the underclassmen breaks out, as Wildcat tradition has it, Coach Neptune will be walking into a good situation next season.