Two days after the Villanova Wildcats suffered yet another early exit from the NCAA Tournament, head coach Jay Wright acknowledged that he and his club will have to learn to live with the painful memory of their loss to NC State.
“Each day, the hurt goes away some,” Wright said Monday. “You’ve got to accept it, and you’ve got to move on, but there’s a part of you just will never accept it.
“And that’s where you’ve just got to find a way to deal with that and move on.”
Riding a 16-game winning streak into Saturday night’s game against eighth-seeded NC State, the Wildcats struggled early, missing several point-blank shots, and never got in sync offensively. They were dominated in the paint and couldn't make up for it from deep.
“We had a team meeting [Monday],” said Wright, who was named Big 5 Coach of the Year (see story), “and I’m trying every way I can to get our guys to own the fact that in the NCAA Tournament, we just didn’t get it done."
The 33-3 overall record. The first Big East Tournament title since 1995. The No. 1 seed. All that was missing from the season was the elusive deep run in the Big Dance.
“In every other area, we had an outstanding season," Wright said. "They did a great job and just get them to come to grips with that, the dichotomy there.
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“The NCAA Tournament, we failed. But the rest of the season we did an incredible job.”