Kevin Willard suits Villanova fine in 1st season on the bench. The Wildcats are winners again

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VILLANOVA, Pa. (AP) — Kevin Willard brought fashion style with him in his first season at Villanova.

Always nattily attired in suits that would make Pat Riley proud, Willard dresses the part of an old school basketball coach, leaving the half-zip hoodies and other casual attire that most coaches transitioned to deep in the game day closet.

His fashion sense is a nod to both his father Ralph, a long-time college and high school coach who always dressed his best, and one of his coaching mentors in Rick Pitino.

Yet Willard’s choice of attire is also rooted in a sense of routine, to lean into something coaches adhered to before the pandemic.

“I was the first one to go back to suits after COVID,” Willard said. “The only thing that made me feel back to normal is putting a suit on. That’s why I did it.”

Back to normal.

It’s more than a dress code that feels familiar this season at Villanova.

After all, one of his Hall of Fame predecessors in Jay Wright was nicknamed “GQ Jay” because of his dapper, tailored suits.

The real sense of normalcy comes from what Willard has restored on the court for a program that suffered through three lean seasons in the wake of Wright's 2022 retirement.

Wright's two national championships and four Final Fours raised the bar of what the Big East program could attain, only for the Wildcats to muddle around .500 and miss the NCAA Tournament — as fan support withered — each of the past three seasons under Kyle Neptune.

Enter Willard, hired after a Sweet 16 run and a messy breakup at Maryland to restore the Wildcats to national prominence — in a conference where UConn has lapped the field during Villanova's demise.

The first-season results are promising, and fans are back packing arenas. Even with a late jump in the transfer portal, the Wildcats are 22-6 (13-4 Big East) and are projected to make the NCAA Tournament as a single-digit seed.

“Like the way we fight and compete,” Villanova national champion and New York Knicks All-Star Jalen Brunson said. "It’s a turnaround for us, and we need that. I’m just happy to see our program doing the things that they’re doing. It’s very exciting to see.”

Sure, it's not those halcyon days of a decade ago when 30-win seasons were the norm. But guards Acaden Lewis, Tyler Perkins and Bryce Lindsay have done enough to give Willard the record for most wins by a first-year Villanova coach.

More are surely on the way down the stretch on a schedule that has a Saturday trip to No. 16 St. John's at Madison Square Garden.

“I still call him Kevy Boy,” Pitino said. “Still love him to do this day. He's a wonderful coach and Villanova's very lucky to have him. He's going to do great things here. Big fan of his, always will be.”

Just maybe not at the Garden where Pitino will surely be fired up after the Red Storm were routed Wednesday night in a 72-40 loss to No. 6 UConn.

No such problems for Willard and the Wildcats on the same night against Butler on the Main Line.

Devin Askew made four 3s in the 82-73 victory and was labeled by Willard the “best practice player” he's had in all his years of coaching.

Perkins topped 1,000 career points. Lewis set the freshman season assist record. Lindsay scored 19 points only to have Willard gently needle him during the postgame news conference when he circled the “0” on the rebound total on the box score.

Being a great practice player means something to Willard because he needed to see how the Wildcats responded this week after they were thumped at the 76ers' arena last Saturday by UConn.

“I think everybody was feeling a little sorry for themselves because we didn't play real well,” Willard said. “But what I told our team was, we just won six in a row. We just played a really, really good UConn team who played very well.”

That is one knock against the Wildcats — along with slow second-half starts and 69% free-throw shooting. The toughest games give Villanova fits, with losses to Top 25 teams BYU, Michigan, St. John's and UConn this season that raise the question of just how far can Willard take this team in March.

Just getting to meaningful March games is already a big win for Willard.

Dipping deep into the NIL coffers to ensure Lewis and other talented underclassmen stick around to keep the Wildcats winners is the next step.

For the rest of the season, Willard is going to enjoy the roster that he has and how they've all played a role in making Villanova again a player on the national scene.

“I think that's why this team is as good as we are, it's their attitude,” Willard said. “They're fun to be (around). I look forward to getting in the gym. I look forward to coaching them. I think that's a huge part of it.”

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A previous version of this story was corrected to show that UConn played St. John’s on Wednesday.

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