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VILLANOVA, Pa. — It could happen again, and Jay Wright knows it.
The Wildcats open play in the NCAA Tournament on Friday against UNC Asheville and after that — assuming No. 2 seed Villanova escapes the No. 15 seed Bulldogs — comes the game everybody has been waiting for since last year.
Villanova in the regional quarterfinals.
If Villanova loses to the winner of the Temple-Iowa game, the Wildcats will become the first school in NCAA Tournament history to lose as a No. 1 or 2 seed to an opponent seeded No. 7 or worse three straight years.
Two years ago, it was No. 7 UConn that toppled the No. 2 Wildcats. Last year, it was No. 8 seed North Carolina State’s turn, beating a top-seeded 'Nova team.
“I thought our teams the last two years were built for deep runs,” head coach Jay Wright said. “I thought we just ran into really bad matchups in the second round.
“The national champion (UConn in 2014) and we ran into a really talented N.C. State team that played great against us. I think this is very similar to our last two teams. I think we can beat anybody, and I think we can get beat by anybody.”
Factor in No. 2 seed Villanova’s 2010 loss to No. 10 seed St. Mary’s, and Villanova has lost its last three second-round games as a No. 1 or No. 2 seed.
Wright spoke at length about Villanova’s NCAA Tournament failings before the Wildcats left for Brooklyn.
And the possibility that it could happen again against a dangerous Iowa team that was ranked as high as No. 3 earlier this year and beat Michigan State when the Spartans were ranked No. 1.
“The problem is, this year, I don’t think besides Kansas and (North) Carolina, I don’t think there’s a team in this tournament that isn’t worried about losing in the second round,” Wright said.
“Last year, you had Duke and Kentucky and Wisconsin and other teams, a number of teams. This year, and this is the year we could do it a third time. That’s just the way it is. ... This year, anybody can get beat.”
Villanova, 29-5, spent three weeks ranked No. 1 before a late-season loss to No. 5 Xavier in Cincinnati. The Wildcats were on target for a No. 1 seed before losing by two to Seton Hall in the Big East Championship Game.
The Wildcats face UNC Asheville at 12:40 p.m. Friday at the Barclay’s Center in Brooklyn.
Wright said his players have done a great job handling the pressure of being “the team that can’t get out of the first weekend.”
“They heard it all year and I’m really proud of how they handled it all year,” he said before practice Tuesday at Villanova’s Davis Center.
“We were saying to them during the year, ‘If we don’t take care of business during the season, we don’t even get to play in the NCAA Tournament.’
“We would win games and people would say it doesn’t really matter. We won the Big East Championship, some people said, ‘Well it doesn’t matter, it only matters what you do in the tournament. You gotta get to the second round.’
“Well, it does matter to them. They only get to play four years. So it matters and they handled it great. So now there’s a little pressure off where we actually get to do what everybody’s been talking about. ...
“These guys have only been here a few years. They’ve only been in it for two. They haven’t been screwing this up as long as I have. They’ve only been here for two years. They don’t feel the pressure, they just want to do it because it’s their senior year. The juniors want to do it because they haven’t done it. They’re good. They’re good.”
Wright believes it’s unfair for Villanova to be judged solely on what happens in the NCAA Tournament.
The Wildcats went 29-5, won the Big East regular-season title, had a three-week run at No. 1 and reached the Big East Tournament title game, all after losing three of their five leading scorers from last year, including all-conference guard Darrun Hilliard, now with the Pistons,.
“We lost three great players,” Wright said. “I’m so proud of this team. When everybody was saying, ‘All you have to do is get to the second round all year,’ I’m thinking, ‘We lost three studs.’ Like, I was thinking, ‘We may not get to the tournament. I don’t know what these guys are going to do.
“But the junior class really stepped up and they did a great job and now we’re here and we have to deal with that issue of getting through the second round.
“But early this year, [I wasn’t] going to say this ... but, ‘Get past the second round? We might be lucky to be an 8- or 9-seed.’”
Wright and the Villanova players will meet the media at the Barclay’s Center at 12:50 p.m. Thursday and again at 1:35 p.m. Saturday, if the Wildcats win on Friday.
We already know what they’ll be asked.
“They’re going to ask us about it until we do it,” Wright said. “And we look at it and say, ‘What if we don’t do it this year?’ They’re just going to ask us more.
“Is that going to kill us? Are we going to die and not be able to play basketball? No. So that’s the worst. That’s what it is. We can handle it. Let’s go try to win the whole thing.
“Nobody’s taking shots and saying we’re a bad program. They just said we haven’t been amongst the elite yet and we haven’t. But we will. We will. I don’t know when but we will.”