VILLANOVA, Pa. – The once-mighty Nova Nation was reduced to a block party as the final seconds of Villanova’s most recent and easily most ignominious loss of the past three seasons ticked away.

A handful of fans who showed up ran toward the Pavilion exits with about 3 minutes left and no indication that a demonstration was coming under coach Kyle Neptune. The main attraction for some: stopping for a courtside selfie with rapper OT7 Quanny in the house.

Villanova fell once again to another perennial lightweight, the kind of team that a program recently boasting NBA stars like Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges would have swept at halftime not long ago.

The final: Colombia 90, Villanova 80.

Yes, Columbia, with four winning Ivy League seasons since 1991 and a 16 1/2-point underdog, scored 90 points in regulation for the first time since 2018 and scored 21 points off turnovers. He joined companies such as Portland and Penn; Drexel and DePaul; Temple and Saint Joseph’s: Drear teams that have beaten the no longer feared Neptune teams during their two-plus seasons.

time out

Fan unrest is growing around the Main Line campus with Neptune at a pedestrian 36-34 since replacing Hall of Fame coach Jay Wright. The upcoming home game against NJIT suddenly looks decisive for NCAA tournament expectations.

“Listen, I’m just as competitive as everyone else. If you don’t get the result you want, sometimes it sucks,” Neptune said. “You have about an hour to say it’s horrible and then, okay, you move on.”

Move on?

You might want to skip social media to avoid the question of whether Villanova would really move on from the 39-year-old Neptune as the program transformed under Wright into a two-time national champion and a perennial challenger for anyone. Dive into one that can’t escape the first round of the NIT.

UConn has surpassed the Wildcats as the class of both the Big East and college basketball. The program that once anchored its success in Villanova Way, a mini-dynasty built on NBA-ready upperclassmen, has become bewildered under the roster chaos born of NIL money and the transfer portal.

Neptune, a career assistant to Wright who coached one season at Fordham before the job of a lifetime opened up, remains optimistic about the state of the program. Neptune largely dismissed comments about the burden he faced trying to rebuild the Wildcats in a conversation this week with The Associated Press before the Columbia loss.

“We certainly haven’t performed at the level of Villanova basketball,” Neptune said. “If that’s the truth, that’s fine. The only thing I can do is worry about what I and our staff can control, and that is to try to prepare this team to be the best it can be at the end of the season, and do it with joy and a positive attitude. .”

Well-liked and respected by everyone in the program, Neptune has downplayed criticism throughout his tenure, insisting at the end of last season that he didn’t listen to fans who booed him at times during pregame introductions or to the horde chanting “We say goodbye to Neptune!” at the NIT.

He says he has shrugged off the pressure that began almost instantly when the nationally ranked Wildcats lost to rival Temple in their second game, even with speculation about his job status while leading a team picked to finish seventh in the Big East.

“Pressure? What does that really mean? It doesn’t really mean anything,” Neptune said. “Those are some expectations. It’s not going to help me in a game to be the best coach I can be.”

Cloudy future

A day after the Wildcats lost their first NIT game for the second straight year, Neptune earned a public vote of confidence from former athletic director Mark Jackson. Jackson, however, left in August for the same job at Northwestern and the search for a new AD at Villanova has dragged on throughout the season.

With each loss that pushes the Wildcats further away from March Madness, would a new boss look for a new coach?

“Honestly, it’s not something I’ve thought about,” Neptune said, “at all.”

Perhaps rightly so, since firing coaches is not in the DNA of the Augustinian Catholic university. The men’s program has nine coaches in a history dating back to 1921; women, only two coaches since 1981; and football, while not a revenue generator at the FCS level, has had two coaches since 1985.

Patience paid off with Jay Wright, who went 52-46 with no NCAA tournament appearances in his first three seasons. But it’s a new era in college sports compared to the days when Wright resurrected the program.

Money matters more than ever, which, even as losses mount, hasn’t been a big problem at wealthy Villanova, where NIL’s coffers are believed to be full. The program where once a transfer was a rarity before NIL and since then the portal has opened its doors.

The annual roster turnover, however, has done little to build the culture (where older stars once taught new kids the concept of Villanova basketball) that was once a hallmark of the championship under Wright.

Challenging transition

Wright took down Villanova when he retired at age 60, weeks after leading the Wildcats to a Final Four in 2022. Neptune, who went 16-16 in his only season at Fordham, was hired the same month.

“I was as surprised as everyone else because he’s a young guy,” Neptune said. “You have these guys training until they are 70 years old. I’m thinking I’ll have to go somewhere else. I’m thinking, I’m going to go somewhere where I know we’ll never play them because he’s going to be a head coach for another 15 years.

“I hope to last 15 or 20 years while he’s still a head coach,” he said. “That’s legitimately what I thought. I never thought it would go away. Why would you leave Villanova? “I thought I would be here forever.”

Wright, now a broadcaster for CBS, attended the game against Columbia and has continued to serve as a sounding board for Neptune largely without public comment.

The closet under Neptune hasn’t been empty: Cam Whitmore was a first-round pick in the 2023 NBA Draft and Caleb Daniels plays for Miami’s G League team. Villanova senior forward Eric Dixon, a Wright holdover who scored 33 points against Columbia, is a borderline NBA prospect.

“I don’t doubt that any of these guys on the team want to win and want to do it,” Dixon said.

Before the Columbia loss, Neptune was steadfast in his belief that the Wildcats could compete for a Big East title, and possibly much more.

“Oh yeah, 100%,” he said. “If you go out and compete to win a championship in this league, you get into the tournament, you’re there.”

What’s next?

Of course, history can repeat itself: Villanova lost to Columbia in 2012 and still made the NCAA Tournament that season.

If Neptune truly can’t adapt the Wildcats to the new climate of college basketball, how much longer can Villanova president the Rev. Peter M. Donohue, a new AD and even his staunchest supporters look the other way?

Or maybe they’ll look like geniuses if Neptune can take Nova to the top of college basketball.

“I think we are in an important situation,” Neptune said, “to continue competing at the highest level.”