Villanova Basketball: Loss to Purdue shows Wildcats never had a chance to repeat

The Villanova basketball team watched their dreams of winning another title come up short Saturday after the Wildcats fell to Purdue 87-61.

Despite their win over St. Mary’s on Thursday, there were concerns surrounding the Villanova basketball team heading into Saturday’s contest against the Purdue Boilermakers, mainly because the Wildcats seemed like they would be over their heads.

As great as it was for Jay Wright’s team to enter this year’s tournament as a No. 6 seed, Villanova has been one of the most difficult teams to figure out all season since they would look like a contender one game, only to look absolutely horrendous the next.

Even during their 61-57 win over St. Mary’s, the Wildcats knew this contest easily could have gone the other way since this wasn’t exactly their best performance, which was part of the reason why there were concerns before taking on the Boilermakers.

Turns out, those concerns were quickly proven accurate after seeing how Purdue had little trouble getting by Villanova 87-61 to advance to the Sweet 16 while sending the Wildcats home for the season, meaning their dreams of repeating came up way short.

From Carsen Edwards dropping a career high 42 points while shooting 9-of-16 from 3-point range to the Wildcats only seeing five points from their bench players, it was a long night for Villanova, as Purdue was in control of this contest for just about the entire game.

Around this time last year, the Wildcats were flirting with the dynasty label after winning their second National Championship in three years, but also they knew how difficult it would be to repeat with some of their key departures.

While players like Phil Booth and Eric Paschall have done an amazing job carrying Villanova all season, this year’s squad doesn’t even come close in comparison to the team that won it all last year.

One of the best parts about March Madness is watching the intensity behind some games that go down to the wire, but Saturday’s game for the Wildcats was far from entertaining since they ended up losing by 26 points.

On a positive note, at least there’s every reason to believe that Villanova will most likely head into next year as one of the top contenders in college basketball since Wright has some of the best talent for a reason.

Plus, as difficult as it is to accept what took place against the Boilermakers, at least the Wildcats can lose this kind of brutal loss as a learning experience to make sure it doesn’t happen again next year.