Those who know, who understand the most important position at the most successful men’s basketball program in recent NCAA history, return to the same phrases. Leader … tough … versatile … resilient … floor general … heart … competitive. They tend to fall back on cliches because what they’re trying to explain is obvious and difficult to describe beyond the obvious part. They’re trying to explain what it means to play guard at Villanova, perhaps the single position that’s most synonymous with the ethos of a modern college basketball power, a job title that doubles as a window into a program’s soul.
Think Villanova men’s basketball and, chances are, “guards” comes next. Think national championships and many pivotal players shared the same position. In 2016: Josh Hart, Ryan Arcidiacono, Jalen Brunson. In 2018: Brunson, Donte DiVincenzo, Phil Booth.
These weren’t the first guards to lift Villanova toward the pinnacle of shining moments. But they were the ones who elevated the Wildcats to bluest-blood status in recent years. The ones who, says former player and assistant coach Baker Dunleavy (now the head coach at Quinnipiac), “have the same personality, the same demeanor; they’re stoic, in a way, ready to rip your heart out.”
That association, of a program and the position that defines it, led Hart to Villanova in the first place. In some ways, Jay Wright reminded him of John Thompson. Both coached in the bruising Big East, at basketball schools—Villanova for Wright, Georgetown for Thompson—and both not only built elite programs but built elite programs with one position as the centerpiece. For Thompson, it was centers; for Wright, guards; specifically at the point. What’s funny, Hart says, is how both coaches wanted the same thing from different places. “Just tough motherf—–s. That’s the pedigree. That’s why they call us Guard U.”
One Wright mentor, Miami’s Jim Larrañaga, watches the Wildcats and sees that soul, which, at its most basic level, is of a point guard. The imprint, he says, is what makes Wright more than a good coach. Season after season, game after game, his guards bully into the paint, drawing fouls or kicking out for open jumpers; they’re adaptable, versatile, consistent and fundamentally sound; they can shoot, drive, pass and rebound. When Larrañaga watches Villanova’s current crop, he sees “carbon copies,” which he describes as “amazing, because they always look very, very similar to how they looked the year before.”
That’s the tapestry of Villanova basketball. One stitched from Randy Foye and Allan Ray and Mike Nardi to everyone who followed; tradition passed from Kyle Lowry to Scottie Reynolds to Corey Fisher, Maalik Wayns and Darren Hilliard; to those who won Wright titles; to the latest in the grand lineage, like Collin Gillespie to Justin Moore. That’s what Larrañaga sees. Same offense. Same defense. Same execution. Same confidence. “It’s actually a very simple brand of basketball,” he says. “But it works, every day and every year.”
To understand how Villanova is making another push for another national title—its third in the last six postseasons—start there. Not with the Big East player of the year honors, the hundreds of games won, the overwhelmed trophy case, or the All-American nods for future NBA draft picks. Playing is more than that, worthy of italics, and it’s the tradition that matters above all, not what the tradition yields.
Case in point: When the Wildcats clash with the Kansas Jayhawks on Saturday night in the first national semifinal, they will do so without Moore, who tore his right Achilles against Houston in the Elite Eight. And yet, as Villanova prepared for a game few think it will win, Wright leaned on veterans like Gillespie to deliver the same message Larrañaga sees on court.
, . That’s the gist.