Villanova’s season was on the brink. Here’s a look at the change that saved it. | Mike Sielski

On Nov. 17, the Villanova Wildcats were 2-2. It was not a good 2-2. They had lost their previous two games, both at home. The first, to their opponent in last year’s national-championship game, Michigan. No shame in losing to coach John Beilein and his team. The shame was in the score, 73-46, and the quality of their performance. Then, they lost in overtime to Furman – part of a 12-0 start for the Paladins that helped them earn the first top-25 ranking in their program’s history. Still, small consolation to the Cats.

Villanova’s next three games were in Lake Buena Vista, Fla., at the AdvoCare Invitational Tournament. Coach Jay Wright and his staff had five days to prepare for the Wildcats’ first game there, against Canisius, and they considered the team’s core problem to be one born of good intentions. 'Nova had two returning senior starters, Phil Booth and Eric Paschall, but the rest of the roster was relatively inexperienced. In the name of developing those younger players, Wright and his staff had wanted to maintain a balanced approach on offense: spread the ball around as much as possible, give the kids as much responsibility as the older guys and let them learn how to handle it.

It wasn’t working. The underclassmen and transfers, Wright could see, were playing tentatively, and the uncertainty was creeping into Booth’s and Paschall’s games, too. Suppose Paschall caught the ball on the wing, 21 feet out, and was sorta-kinda open -- but another, younger player was more open. Was Paschall supposed to take the three-pointer or make the extra pass to the lesser shooter? Those moments of hesitation were happening too frequently. Through Villanova’s first four games, Paschall took just 11.3 shots per game and shot terribly from three-point range, 17.6 percent. Booth made just 29 percent of his three-point attempts, and the supporting cast couldn’t bear the rest of the burden.

“They weren’t ready yet to play a significant role in a winning team,” Wright said after Villanova practiced Tuesday, one day before its 86-74 victory over DePaul. “We also saw that we hadn’t given Phil and Eric the chance to carry this team yet.”

The solution was simple enough: The Wildcats would have to cast aside the notion of “balance” and lean on their two top players, Booth and Paschall. It was a strategy that had worked for Wright earlier in his tenure at Villanova, though he has been there long enough now, 18 years, and his teams have gone through enough iterations that it was difficult for him to recall it.

During the 2006-07 season, after 'Nova had lost Randy Foye, Allan Ray, and Kyle Lowry to graduation and/or the NBA, the Wildcats used a similar approach with a slightly different pair of players: senior Curtis Sumpter and freshman Scottie Reynolds. The offense streamed through those two, with senior guard Mike Nardi functioning mostly as a spot-up shooter. Now, Wright and his assistants (of whom Nardi is one) realized that they had to turn Booth and Paschall loose, and the development of those younger players might have to be more gradual. Booth and Paschall deserved and had earned that trust.

“What was most impressive is how unselfish they were early in the season to stay within the old system and just roll with it,” Wright said. “They never complained, even when we were getting beat. They’re much more comfortable in the situation they’re in now, and I think they feel like, ‘It’s our senior year. If we’re going down, let’s go down with us running the ship.’

“Every player would like that situation. The next step is, can you handle that and make the team win and also handle that intelligently and not be greedy with it? That’s what they’re really doing a good job of. They still make the right decisions.”

Since the change in philosophy and strategy, Villanova has won 15 of its 17 games, including all three at the AdvoCare Invitational, including its last nine. Over those 17, Paschall is averaging one more shot attempt per game than he was over his first four games, and his production has skyrocketed: 17.8 points a game, 47 percent from the field, 41 percent from three-point range. Booth has become a more efficient scorer. After averaging 15 field-goal attempts through his first four games, he has taken 12.4 per game since, yet his other numbers are up: 19.1 points a game, 48 percent from the field, 45 percent from deep.

The Wildcats don’t have a junior in their regular rotation. So it’s possible that Villanova will pay a price for this approach next season, because its underclassmen won’t be as honed as they might have been if Wright had chosen to keep slogging through this season. The flip side of that argument is that it will only help those underclassmen in the long run to be part of an excellent team now, and that they’ll develop anyway. Freshman forward Saddiq Bey, for instance, scored a season-high 16 points Wednesday against DePaul. “You can talk to them as much as you want,” Booth said, “but once they do it and they feel it on the court, that’s the best thing for them.”

For the whole team, actually. It just took focusing on two terrific players, and them alone, to get there.