Villanova Basketball: Wildcats earn No. 6 seed for 2019 NCAA tournament

The Villanova basketball team earned a No. 6 seed in the South Region and will face St. Mary’s first in the 2019 NCAA tournament.

Fresh off their incredible win over Seton Hall to earn a third Big East Championship in a road, all eyes were on the Villanova basketball team on Selection Sunday to see who the Wildcats would face to kick off the 2019 NCAA tournament.

Turns out, the Wildcats have a difficult path ahead of them if Jay Wright’s team is going to have any chance of earning a third title in four years after Villanova earned a No. 6 seed along with a first-round matchup against St. Mary’s.

Around this time last year, the Wildcats were considered one of the favorites to win the tournament, and rightfully so since Wright was fortunate to have one of the most talented rosters in the country with players like Jalen Brunson and Donte DiVincenzo.

This time around, with Brunson and DiVincenzo currently enjoying NBA life, the Wildcats will look to other key players such as Phil Booth and Eric Paschall to lead the way in this year’s tournament, which will be far from easy for the defending champions.

For starters, if the Wildcats do find a way to finish on the winning end against St. Mary’s their potential second-round matchup could be against one of the top teams the country has to offer in Purdue, who earned a No. 3 seed in the region.

Thursday can’t come soon enough for Villanova, as this team hopes to see their momentum from the Big East tournament carry over to the tournament that matters the most.

Do the Wildcats have what it takes to make a serious run to potentially put them in the dynasty talk? Winning the tournament twice in the last three seasons was quite impressive for Villanova, but even they know the circumstances are much different this time around when looking at the talent they have to work with compared to the previous championship runs.

Then again, one of the most exciting parts about this time of year is some of the surprise runs teams manage to put together, so maybe the Wildcats have what it takes to shock the basketball world to pull off a few key wins over the next few weeks.

Between being a No. 6 seed along with handling the pressure of entering this year’s tournament as defending champions, Villanova has quite the work cut out for them over these next few weeks.

But before jumping too far ahead, all of the focus for the Wildcats right now should be on Thursday’s meeting with the Gaels.