Villanova Preview: Wildcats Open With Top Ten Showdown in Vegas

Villanova Men’s Basketball will begin their 2025-26 season out in the desert, facing No. 8 BYU and small forward A.J. Dybantsa, the top recruit in the country for the class of 2025, at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Opening tip-off is scheduled for 9:30 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 3, the nightcap of the Hall of Fame Series Las Vegas that also will host the reigning national champions, Florida, against Arizona.

In a full circle moment, this season — and the tenure of new Wildcats head coach Kevin Willard — will begin where last season ended, as the Wildcats fell to UCF in the College Basketball Crown at T-Mobile Arena back in April. Although Las Vegas is much closer to Provo, Utah than the Main Line, this game will still count as a neutral site matchup: given the Cougars’ position inside the top ten, it should still count as a Quadrant 1 matchup once the preliminary NET Rankings come out beginning in December.

Villanova will miss a pair of key contributors in this game, with point guard Devin Askew and wing Zion Stanford both nursing injuries. Playing shorthanded nearly 2,200 miles away from home, the Wildcats are a heavy underdog, with ESPN Bet giving them +270 odds of winning — 2.7 to one. The point spread sits at -8.5 in the Cougars’ favor and the over/under rests at 153.5, while ESPN Analytics places the Wildcats’ chances of winning at 31.5 percent.

Scouting the Wildcats

Villanova returns just three players from last season, and only one who played a minute, junior guard Tyler Perkins. The Wildcats will likely roll out a starting lineup of Perkins, freshman point guard Acaden Lewis, big man Duke Brennan, forward Matt Hodge, and guard Bryce Lindsay.

Perkins averaged 6.3 points, 4.3 rebounds, and 1.1 steals in 25.8 minutes as a defensive specialist last season. Lewis will certainly deal with growing pains as a true freshman leading the offense, but he led Villanova in scoring in both of their preseason games, showing how much he’s developed already.

Brennan plays like a traditional center or power forward, averaging close to a double-double last season with Grand Canyon and scoring the vast majority of his points from the paint. Hodge took an impromptu redshirt season in 2024-25 because of a transcript issue after transferring from a high school in his native Belgium to the United States, while Lindsay won the Sun Belt’s Sixth Man and Freshman of the Year awards last season at JMU after putting up 13.4 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists per game.

Sophomore wing Malachi Palmer and freshman guard Chris Jeffrey will also see important minutes, and forward Tafara Gapare could play a bigger role off the bench as the Wildcats nurse their injuries.

Expect aggressive defensive play, as shown during the preseason, and an up-tempo but inexperienced offense.

Scouting the Cougars

Sophomore guard Rob Wright landed on the Big 12 All-Freshman team last season, averaging 11.5 points and 4.2 assists per game for Baylor. That made him one of the top transfers in the country.

Dybantsa is a 6-foot-9, 195 pound small forward expected to go No. 1 overall in the 2026 NBA Draft. A double-double machine with a solid three-point shot, Dybantsa can draw fouls in bunches and has the agility and handles of a much smaller player.

6-foot-6 forward Kennard Davis Jr. transferred in from Southern Illinois, where he put up 16.3 points, 4.9 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game; senior guard and three-point sniper Richie Saunders Jr. returns to the Cougars after winning First Team All-Big 12 honors on the strength of a 16.5 point, 4.5 rebound line, while Malian center Keba Keita (7.4 points, 7.9 rebounds per game last season) rounds out the starting lineup.

BYU’s combination of size and shooting makes them a nightmare to match up with, and defensive standouts like Perkins and Jeffrey will need to do an excellent job of shutting down Davis and Saunders to give Villanova a chance; likewise with Duke Brennan at the rim.