Ad Disclosure
Villanova has fired head men’s basketball coach Kyle Neptune, according to multiple reports.
The news was first reported on Saturday morning by The Villanovan, the independent student paper at Villanova University. Neptune led the Wildcats to a 19-14 record this season but his third year ended with a 73-56 loss to UConn in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals. Neptune went 54-47 during his time atop the program, ending with the third-worst winning percentage by a Villanova head coach.
Villanova is set to miss the NCAA Tournament for the third straight season. Prior to Neptune’s appointment, the Wildcats had made 9 straight appearances in the NCAA Tournament. They’d been part of 16 of the last 17 competitions overall.
Jay Wright won national championships in 2016 and 2018. He made 4 trips to the Final Four and won at least 1 tournament game in each of his final 8 seasons in charge of the program. Replacing the best coach in school history was always going to be a challenge, but Neptune’s tenure looked shaky right from the start.
Villanova lost games to Temple and Portland early in Neptune’s debut season. It lost to Penn, Saint Joseph’s, and Drexel early in the 2023-24 season. It lost to Columbia at home earlier this season.
Neptune came to Villanova after a season at Fordham, but he was a natural successor for Wright after spending 10 years in his program as a video coordinator and an assistant coach. Villanova will presumably open up a national search for its next head coach. As a “new-blood” kind of program, Villanova has enough brand recognition to lure an attractive coach. And that coach will be pitched the prospect of returning the Wildcats to March Madness glory without the burden of immediately following in Wright’s footsteps.
Derek Peterson does a bit of everything, not unlike Taysom Hill. He has covered Oklahoma, Nebraska, the Pac-12, and now delivers CFB-wide content.
