A low point in Jay Wright's Villanova tenure

As much as Villanova has struggled this season, this was new territory, losing at home by 17 points to South Florida, making every fifth three-pointer the Wildcats took, being equally ineffective at the other end.

One gray-haired fan at the Pavilion Thursday with a bullhorn voice offered encouraging words: "Guard somebody!" (at a specific player) and "Rebound the ball!" (to the group as a whole).

The worst regular-season loss of Jay Wright's Villanova tenure? Had to be - against a school that has averaged one Big East road win a year since joining the league and had been 0-6 away from home. There were dissatisfying endings to the last couple of seasons but nobody accused Villanova of being a bad basketball team, which is where things now stand.

"We've got to start this thing all over," Wright said later Thursday night, referring to the younger guys on his team. "We've got to teach our fundamentals. We've got to teach our core values."

As telling is what a local high school coach and big Villanova rooter said before the USF game: "I don't know what their identity is. Are they a frontcourt-oriented team? Are they a guard-oriented team?"

In a perfect world, Wright wants this group to be a mixture of the two, a balanced team. Right now, the balance is this: Villanova has the worst shooting percentage of the 16 Big East teams and is fifth-worst at defending the three. Now 0-3 in the Big East, 'Nova is 7-8 and under .500 for the first time since late in the 2003-04 season, the last time the Wildcats didn't make the NCAA tournament. The Wildcats may look better Sunday against DePaul, but that's what you expected Thursday, not seeing junior point guard Maalik Wayns of all people leading Villanova with five rebounds while not getting a single assist for the first time since his freshman year. There weren't any assists to be had.

"We didn't do anything to get ourselves any easy baskets," Wright said afterward.

Going into the season, Villanova didn't seem too young - they could choose to start three juniors and two sophomores, which in college basketball these days is almost perfect - except the lineup is getting younger, on merit. Whatever the grouping, every player has a new role from last season.