Kyle Neptene’s first season at Villanova ends with NIT Loss to Liberty

Lynchburg, Va: The best time for College basketball has arrived & it is called March Madness. It was a very challenging season for the Villanova Wildcats, who went 17-16 & 10-10 in the Big East under first-year head coach Kyle Neptune as they got invited to the NIT. This is the 1^st time that the Villanova Wildcats will be taking part in the NIT since 2004.

Villanova would go on the road for a battle with Liberty, who is 26-8 in the 1^st round of the NIT.

Kyle Neptune said that their two star players in Justin Moore & Cam Whitmore would be game-time decisions & they did not play in the game.

How the game went:

Liberty got the game started with a 3-pointer for a 3-0 lead. Jordan Longino got the Wildcats on the board and cut the lead to 3-2. The Wildcats would take their first lead of the game by way of a 3 from Eric Dixon for a 5-3 lead.

Liberty would jump out to a 12-9 lead and then the Wildcats would answer the run from Liberty, tying things at 17 with 7:44 left in the 1^st half.

Later on, in the 1^st half, both teams would continue to play good defense. Two times in the half the Wildcats would have scoring droughts of 4 minutes and Liberty would make them pay with a 9-0 run for a 32-25 lead at halftime

In the 2^nd halff, the Wildcats would keep this game close but the story of the game was the 3-point shooting. They were not dropping for Villanova and Liberty made them pay multiple times, led by Darius McGhee who made 5-13 from 3 PT range.

There were multiple times in the second half that the Wildcats cut the Flame’s lead with the lowest being 3 with 2:53 left. Late in the game, when Villanova needed a 3 to drop, it would not go down and so would their season as Liberty would knock out the Wildcats 62-57.

The Wildcats would finish 4-26 from 3 PT range – 15% – and when those shots are not falling, you normally don’t win those types of games. 

Postgame:

Villanova Coach Kyle Neptune on the season: 

#Villanova Coach Kyle Neptune about tonight's loss to #Liberty & on the season

"I think our young guys got a lot of good experience & those guys will take that experience we're going to next year & we'll get better"#NovaNation #NIT pic.twitter.com/CmeFr2MhrN

— David Malandra Jr (@DaveMReports) March 15, 2023

Final Numbers:

What is next:

The Wildcats would end their season at 17-17 & this was a very challenging year for first-year coach Kyle Neptune. This would turn out to be the final games for Villanova’s Brandon Slater and Caleb Daniels. We are not sure about the decisions of Justin Moore & Cam Whitmore.