Big East Roster Analysis: Villanova Wildcats
This is not a team-by-team preview series for the Providence Friars’ 10 Big East rivals, though it’s not far off. What it is intended to be is a look at how each of the 10 rosters is put together for the coming season. There are a lot of new faces and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out what each piece brings and how it fits together. I’m sure I’ll be wrong often, but I walk away feeling more informed, and I’m hoping you will, too.
Villanova Wildcats (see below)
I don’t know what it’s like inside the Villanova program – I’m sure there’s a mix of optimism and anxiety – but the view from where I sit is troubling. The flagship program of the reformed Big East for nearly a decade, the Wildcats have missed two straight NCAA Tournaments despite rosters that seemed to be top-25 quality before vastly underachieving.
It’s about to be Year 3 of the Kyle Neptune Era and Villanova has the resources of a top-15 program but is in danger of missing a third straight NCAA Tournament based simply on the quality of the roster without factoring the poor results this staff managed with better talent. The Wildcats return only one starter – Eric Dixon. He figures to be in the mix for first-team all-Big East thanks to his inside-outside game as a big and his stolid rebounding. Gone is everyone else:
Mark Armstrong, who seemed to play well in any uniform but a Villanova one
T.J. Bamba, who took his talents to Eugene after a mediocre junior season
Lance Ware, the overpaid backup big who went from Kentucky to VU and now to UT-Arlington
Justin Moore, a Nova legend who never quite made it all the way back after an Achilles’ injury suffered in the 2022 Elite 8
Tyler Burton, who went from all-Atlantic-10 at Richmond to misutilized complementary piece
Hakim Hart, a terrific role player at Maryland, but something less on the Mainline
Brendan Hausen, a dynamic shooter from Texas who heads back to the heartland at Kansas State
Except for Ware, that’s a lot of talent, which means another roster refresh for Neptune at a program more accustomed to year-over-year development. Wooga Poplar is the biggest addition, a Philadelphia native ticketed for stardom last season in the vacuum provided by Miami’s departures from a Final Four squad. Instead, Poplar was good but not great on a Hurricanes team that completely collapsed down the stretch, losing its final 10 games. Now the 6-foot-5 wing will be counted on as the second option behind Dixon.
Poplar is a 36% career 3-point shooter on high volume and a dynamic finisher around the rim when he gets there. He’ll likely de-emphasize his mediocre pull-up game in the mid-range (34% on 83 attempts last season) to fit the Nova system.
The 5-foot-11 Jahmir Brickus figures to start at point guard. He has the Villanova “booty ball” style down and also provides solid passing and 3-point shooting, and he has the capability to explode on a given night: he scored 41 points and grabbed nine rebounds in a November loss vs. Temple. The step up in competition from La Salle figures to make him a fourth or fifth option in most lineups, and that’s a problem because Villanova is lacking a third option. Max Shulga is heading back to VCU after flirting with Villanova. Though his departure may have opened the door for Poplar, the Wildcats are still missing a third guy.
Penn transfer Tyler Perkins is the most intriguing option to be that third guy, providing either instant offense off the bench or perhaps as the third option in the starting lineup. He’s 6-foot-4, so he can play in a three-guard lineup without being undersized, and indeed his defensive-rebounding rate, at least at the Ivy League level, was actually 16th, so he can play up in size. He was a 35% 3-point-shooter on high volume as a freshman and, if he trades some of his mid-range jumpers for layups or threes, as is the Villanova trademark, his overall efficiency should improve.
Jordan Longino is the other option to start between Poplar and Brickus (or perhaps all of them start with Dixon at the five in an uber-small lineup). Longino is a defense-first “innings eater” who can play up or down to provide lineup balance but doesn’t offer much dynamism in the form of knockdown shooting or rim pressure.
At center may be Enoch Boakeye, who is on his third program – he spent two years at Arizona State and one at Fresno State. Though Boakeye figures to provide the sort of rim protection Neptune mistakenly believed Ware would offer, he is limited offensively and seems likely to clog up the paint for Villanova’s paint touches, including Dixon’s. Perhaps Boakeye’s elite rebounding and rim protection make up for that, but VU may struggle to space with him in the lineup.
The rest of the bench is filled with question marks – four freshman and than Nnana Djoku and Jordann Dumont, the last of whom is still recovering from May double-hip surgery. Matthew Hodge is a top-75 freshman power forward who, along with Njoku (who has played just 29 Big East minutes over three seasons), will provide important minutes off the bench. Josiah Mosely is another freshman forward with solid scouting reports who may be needed sooner than most Villanova rosters would require. Still another freshman, Malcolm Thomas, is a self-described “defensive-minded, two-way player” who is the son of former Big East star Etan Thomas (Syracuse).
Until Villanova added Bulgarian prospect Aleksandar Gavalyugov this summer as the squad’s fourth freshman, the roster only had three guards, and depth could still be a problem in the case of a backcourt injury (for what it’s worth, Gavalyugov seems to be able to navigate a ball screen).
This roster is unquestionably worse than the previous two under Neptune, and there is not much reason to think he can do more with less. No Big East coach is under more pressure to perform this season, and it will take something better than what Neptune has shown to turn this squad into something more than a low-end at-large team.