Is this Villanova's best ever team?

Dick Jerardi was at the RAC last night to cover Villanova-Rutgers for the Daily News.

In his game recap, Jerardi made an assertion that should get us all talking:

This is Villanova basketball, 2009-10. You could make a really good argument that 1 through 11, this is the most talented team in Big 5 history.

Well now. I suspect that Chuck Daly and Harry Litwack would have something to say about that, not to mention Kenny Durrett.

And I'm not even sure this year's Wildcats are better than the Ray-Foye-Sumpter-Fraser squad of 2005.

Yeah, you heard me right. I've long believed that had Curtis Sumpter not blown out his knee in Nashville, that Villanova team would have made the Final Four. They certainly wouldn't have had to play North Carolina before the national semifinals. And the '05-'06 team would have been even better had Sumpter not torn his ACL a second time.

Is this year's 'Nova squad better than last year's, which did make the Final Four? We can probably agree that it is. What about the 1985 national championship team? We can probably agree that these Wildcats are better than those as well.

But let's go back a bit farther into the history books. How would this year's Villanova team compare to the 1971 squad, which was was really one of the all-time greats?

Sure, the game was different back then. But wouldn't it be something to see Antonio Pena and Scottie Reynolds face Howard Porter and Hank Siemiontkowski in their primes?

Now we're talking.

So I put the question to you: Which team is Villanova's best ever?

Have your say in the poll and the comments.

Wednesday recaps

Temple 77, Xavier 72: Box score | Enhanced box | Mike Kern | Kevin Tatum | Photos
Villanova 94, Rutgers 68: Box score | Enhanced box | Dick Jerardi | Joe Juliano | Photos
La Salle 76, Penn 57: Box score | Enhanced box | Bernard Fernandez | Ray Parrillo | Photos
Drexel 78, James Madison 57: Box score | Enhanced box | Mike Mazzeo | Brendan Quinn | Notebook