NCAA Basketball: Reevaluating preseason top 25 power rankings of 2022-23 season

16. Villanova (17-17, NIT)

For the last decade, Villanova has dominated the Big East, which seems incredibly surreal in a great conference like this. They won almost every regular season title in the conference and had those two national titles in 2016 and 2018. Things are different now, as longtime head coach Jay Wright retired and former aide Kyle Neptune took over the program. After losing two starters from last year’s Final Four squad, the Wildcats were leaning on some new faces to play starring roles under a new head coach this season.

Clearly, things did not go according to plan for the Wildcats this season. An early season loss to Temple set the stage and an 8th-place finish at the Phil Knight Invitational was pretty bad, including a double-digit loss against Portland. The Wildcats played better ball near the end of the season, especially when they got the injured Justin Moore back in the lineup, but it was too little too late. Villanova won six of their final eight regular season games but fell to Creighton in the Big East Tournament and didn’t last long in the NIT.

If you consider what the Wildcats have accomplished in the last decade, this season was absolutely a horrific disappointment. Things are different now at Villanova and growing pains were expected with a new head coach and changes in this starting rotation. The Wildcats have lost some incredible players in recent years and will find it much more challenging to compete in this even tougher Big East, but it’s also far too early to deem Neptune a failure after one porous season.