Villanova is coming of age, but is racing against time to do it | Bob Ford

NEW YORK – Villanova began its postseason journey on Thursday afternoon the same way it does every year – with a noon quarterfinal win in the Big East Tournament against an opponent that just couldn’t keep up with the Wildcats.

Or at least that’s the way it seems. Same Madison Square Garden locker room. Same guards outside the door. Same position as the top seed in the tournament. Same result. Been there, done that, sang the alma mater.

But this isn’t just another season for Villanova. It is the season after a second national championship in three years, and a season in which a hasty rebuilding has left coach Jay Wright with five freshmen and sophomores and a first-year grad transfer in his eight-man rotation. March is a tough month for inexperienced teams, which means Wright and the Wildcats have to grow up fast.

The opening 73-62 win over Providence on Thursday looks easy enough on the scoreboard, but doesn’t account for the fact the game was tied midway through the second half, or that Villanova shot horribly to that point. Providence flagged toward the end, perhaps the result of a play-in game the previous evening, and the Wildcats were lifted by senior Eric Paschall who bulled for 10 of his game-high 20 points in the final seven minutes.

Every year — another of those every-year things — Wright tells his team that the conference tournament is a different animal, and that what might have been easy in the regular season won’t be easy in the Garden. Every year except this year, that is. He didn’t need to remind this team that the game of basketball can be difficult.

“It usually is valuable [to say to previous teams], but this team hasn’t really wanted for tough games,” Wright said. “We’ve had plenty of them. In other years, we’ve been dominant in some games. This team, every game’s been a tough game. So, we would have taken an easy one, but it certainly wasn’t. I’m happy that it was a tough, physical game and the guys played through it.”

Villanova came into the postseason flying well under the national radar. The Wildcats are not going to occupy a top line, or close to it, in the NCAA Tournament, and the sense is they have already been dismissed as a contender. That’s understandable given what they lost from the roster after last season, but taking Villanova for granted is still not a good idea.

“I do think they’re undervalued. When you play them, you run into a really physical, methodical, tough team,” Providence coach Ed Cooley said after the game. “So for everybody who doesn’t think Villanova is still one of the elite teams in the country, wait until you play them.”

Wright’s challenge isn’t preparing the team to play the brand of basketball he wants. If that hasn’t happened by now, it’s not going to happen. His job is to shepherd the younger players past the early obstacles until they get used to this environment.

“I still get nervous coming to games here, and walking out on the court,” Wright said. “So we know a young kid, his first time here, it’s intimidating. It’s a good thing and it’s exciting, but it affects you.”

What works in Villanova’s favor, beyond having Phil Booth and Paschall, true Final Four veterans, is that sophomores Collin Gillespie, Jermaine Samuels and Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree got a decent taste of the postseason as freshmen, too. Now, the Wildcats just have to make sure freshmen Saddiq Bey and Cole Swider, and graduate transfer Joe Cremo assimilate as well.

“One of our advantages in the NCAA Tournament is having guys who have played in it. If you have guys on your team who have won a national championship, nobody else has that, because they leave,” Wright said. “The NCAA Tournament is so big…if you’ve been there and know what’s coming, it’s an advantage.”

Same goes for the conference tournament, which could help or hinder the team’s NCAA seeding. If the boys catch up to the men quickly, who knows what can happen?

Against Providence, it was a struggle for freshman swingman Saddiq Bey, who missed all four of his shot attempts and fouled out in a little over 15 minutes of play. Conversely, freshman Cole Swider, who had played exactly one minute since breaking his hand in mid-January, turned in 14 productive minutes and appeared to jump back into the rotation. He took his minutes from grad transfer Joe Cremo, who missed three three-pointers early and didn’t reappear until the closing seconds.

Villanova will need all of them eventually if this postseason is to remain interesting and if the Wildcats are able to, well, remain. No one on the outside is really expecting that, which is just fine with them.

“When [attention] is positive on our end, we don’t respond to that. So when it is negative, we don’t care, either. But we see it all,” Wright said.

They see it all, and that’s because they have seen it all before. Whatever else the Wildcats have going for them, or don’t, they definitely have that.