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Opinion: When Villanova Comes Crawling Back – Which They 100% Will – the Big 5 Should Not Let Them In
By Matt Schultz
Published:
If you haven’t heard, Villanova killed the Big 5 last week. Some people have been trying to frame that as an opinion, but it’s not. It’s a fact. Here’s the short version of what happened:
With the current three-year format coming to an end after this season, Villanova gave the other schools an ultimatum: set up the Big 5 in a bracketed format where the top two seeds get a bye and play the winners of the 3-6 seeded teams in the top seeds’ buildings, or they walk. According to reporting from Owls Daily, quoting Temple A.D. Arthur Johnson, and other outlets, Nova wanted the seeding to be determined by the previous season’s NET rating. Willard mentioned this in last week’s rant, and of course it makes sense for them. Villanova plays in the Big East, which means their NET rating is almost guaranteed to be better than the NET ratings of the rest of the Big 5, even if the Wildcats have a shit team in any particular year.
So basically, Kevin Willard wanted 1) an automatic top seed in the Big 5 bracket 2) to only have to play two Big 5 games per year, and 3) to only ever play those games on his home court. The rest of the Big 5 said, “Interesting offer, but in your fuckin’ dreams, pal.”
And that was that. Villanova threw a tantrum, they didn’t get their way, and so they took their ball and went home. Not that anyone’s surprised. This is simply what Villanova does. With the exception of Jay Wright, no Villanova coach or athletic director has ever seemed to give two shits about the Big 5.
Willard has been telegraphing plans to leave the Big 5 since he got to the Main Line, insinuating that it’s a waste of time for a school as mighty as Villanova to have to play St. Joe’s, Temple, La Salle, Penn, or Drexel (despite the fact that Nova has gone an incredibly mediocre 46-34 in the Big East and 8-5 in the Big 5 since Jay Wright left — aren’t they supposed to be too good for the Big 5? Isn’t that their whole thing?) when they could have bigger and better games on their schedule instead (Villanova is playing Rider, Holy Cross, FDU, and Coppin State this year, lol).
Rollie Massimino cared so little about the Big 5 that he quit the City Series altogether and had Villanova leave the Big 5 from 1991 to 1999, killing the original round-robin format that’d been going since 1955.
And now here we are, watching it happen again: Villanova is cratering the Big 5. Willard is shamefully taking shots at La Salle and the press for some reason. He’s blaming Nova’s departure on everyone else in the Big 5 — especially Temple and Johnson — in a pathetic, failed attempt to spin the narrative. The man is lashing out like a spaz. It’s a mess. The guy is an embarrassment:
From where I’m sitting, the crux of the problem here is that Villanova has always had a delusional and grandiose view of themselves as a program, and it’s only gotten worse since Jay left. It’s abundantly clear to everyone except the Wildcats that they’re not the program they think they are. The few extra NET-strengthening games they may add by blowing up the Big 5 will absolutely not move the needle, because in this new age of haves and have-nots in college basketball — relative to actual powerhouse programs and unbeknownst to them — Nova is a have-not.
Villanova is not a blue blood. They’re a medium-to-fine team in the new Big East, a watered-down shell of the gauntlet it used to be, before the departure of teams like Syracuse, West Virginia, Notre Dame, Pitt, and Louisville. UConn left and came back. Villanova spends its conference schedule beating up on teams that wouldn’t crack the top-four in the A10, and watching Saint John’s and UConn surpass them by leaps and bounds as the only Big East teams that matter. Villanova’s days as national contenders were over the moment Jay Wright was gone. They didn’t capitalize early enough in the NIL era. They can’t make up the ground they lost. No matter how much scraping and clawing and flailing Villanova does, it’s all diminishing returns from here. The ship has sailed. The Wildcats are not on it.
In short, Villanova blew up local basketball history and tradition so they can be a perpetual 9th seed in the tournament and a pit stop for coaches who’ll stay for three years before leaving for a better job (Willard included), destined to play games no one is watching on FS2.
Which makes them sound a lot like the rest of the Big 5, doesn’t it? Isn’t it weird that Villanova doesn’t see this? That they’re closer to St. Joe’s and Temple than they are to the teams at the top of their own conference, let alone actual national powerhouses? That they’re essentially George Mason with a better TV deal?
All of that to say: Villanova will try to get back in the Big 5. I don’t know if it’ll be in a year or in a decade, but they’re going to come crawling back. They’ll realize it’s a cold world out there, where the Big 10 and SEC and power conference football are siphoning every last dollar and cent on the table and won’t stop until they have it all. Willard will probably be gone by then, and Nova will have to backtrack on all the embarrassing, weirdo shit he talked. Villanova will dress up their return as a reunion, a reignition of tradition. They’ll glowingly soliloquize about how special Philadelphia basketball culture is, how the Big 5 is an institution that must be protected and celebrated, how in this age of rampant greed and soulless commercialization in college sports, the Big 5’s emphasis on community and connection is more important than ever.
And when they do, I sincerely hope the rest of the schools tells them, “Interesting offer, but in your fuckin’ dreams, pal.”
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com