What has been surprising is how quickly the fall came after the Wildcats won 20 of their first 21 games and climbed to No. 2 in the national rankings. Since then, beginning with a Feb. 6 game at Georgetown, Villanova has lost six of 10 games.
During the regular season, Wright attributed it to a tough back end of the schedule. Yesterday, he said the Wildcats had improved after three good practices, but ran into a hot-shooting Marquette team that was just a little better.
Where the line between rational analysis and rationalization lies depends on your point of view. The players are still saying the correct things despite the recent losses. Wright continues to accentuate the positive. Nevertheless . . .
"Early on when we were winning a lot of games, we were making mistakes and making up for it by outscoring people," Wright said after yesterday's loss. "I told them we were going to be playing better teams and weren't going to be able to do that. But if we took what people were saying about us then, then we have to take the hits now. Publicly, we deserve the hits now, but internally we're OK, because we understand we're getting better."
The progress may not pay its real dividends until the 2010-11 season, which will be fine for the younger players but won't do much for seniors Scottie Reynolds and Reggie Redding, who are dreading the final goodbye.
"As a competitor, you don't want to lose. Anybody who knows me knows I would give a leg to win," Reynolds said. "But as a leader, you've got to look at the bigger picture and that's we're continuing to get better."
