Villanova Bracketology: Wildcats Still on the Offseason Bubble

With the transfer period wrapped up and their roster nearly completed, Villanova Men’s Basketball made just one move in the month of June, bringing in Maryland transfer and former Top 100 recruit Tafara Gapare. Even so, they managed to hold firm in ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi’s latest offseason rankings, updated once monthly throughout the summer, taking third place in his “Next Four Out” category on the way to a No. 75 ranking in the 68-team field.

The Wildcats didn’t make it on Lunardi’s first rankings, but adding incoming freshman Acaden Lewis, ranked as one of the top 35 players in the class of 2025, helped them sneak onto the bubble in his May post.

Given a coaching change and the loss of all five of last year’s starters to graduation — the Wildcats have just one returning player who logged any minutes at all, rising junior Tyler Perkins — that’s a solid place for the team to land… even if offseason rankings can only do so much (or so little) to project a team’s success.

Another layer of intrigue for Villanova is the fact that the NCAA Tournament could expand to a 76 team field as soon as this upcoming season. While many fans will complain about the danger of watering down one of the most frenetic postseasons in all of sports, allowing for another eight teams to punch their ticket to the Big Dance could go a long way to helping a team expected to lurk on the bubble.

Lunardi’s bracket has three Big East teams, St. John’s, UConn and Creighton, making the tournament, while Marquette landed as the first team out of the field.

Click here for more Villanova Men’s Basketball news.