Big 5 hoops: Why Kevin Willard doesn’t mind a Villanova shot clock violation, predicting award winners, and more

Every once in a while, Kevin Willard loves when the shot clock expires before a Villanova shot attempt.

There really is a time and place for everything.

“Everyone will say, ‘You’re nuts,’” Willard said Tuesday night after Villanova rallied late to beat Marquette. “It takes 30 seconds; it sets up our defense. The worst thing you can do is come down and jack up a shot with two seconds on the shot clock, long rebound, your defense isn’t set. I’d rather have a shot-clock violation, set my defense up, have them work for 25 seconds, and then take 30 seconds and the game’s over.”

Villanova has taken its share of violations in the second half of victories this season. There were two during a 12-point win over Seton Hall on Feb. 4 while the Wildcats held leads of 14 and 12 inside of five minutes. They took one vs. Providence up by 19 points with four minutes left. They took one vs. Butler while ahead by 12 with 2½ minutes to go. And they had three during their Big East opener on Dec. 23, when they built a big lead over Seton Hall on the road and eventually won by eight.

To be clear, there were no such violations during Tuesday’s win. So how did we get to this topic? Willard was asked after the game about tempo and whether he thought the team could play a little faster. The Wildcats are ranked 335th by KenPom’s adjusted tempo metric and 297th in average possessions per game (68.4).

» READ MORE: Villanova survived a scare from Marquette, but there are concerns. One in particular? Poor foul shooting.

Willard, who has the Wildcats at 19-5 overall and 10-3 in the Big East heading into Saturday’s game at Creighton, is a passionate talker of tempo. He went on a mini rant about the subject in April at his introductory news conference at Villanova. He focuses on defensive tempo, he explained then, the amount of time it takes for an opponent to get off a shot. On the offensive side, the difference between shot speed from top to bottom is only a matter of a few seconds, he said.

“You know the difference between the 20th fastest team and us?” Willard asked Tuesday. “1.6 seconds.”

By average number of possessions, the difference between Villanova at 297th and the 100th-ranked team (Miami) is just four possessions.

“I have a young team and when we get up I’m going to control the ball and take the air out of the ball,” Willard said. “That’s one of the reasons why our tempo is so low is if you watch any time we’ve gotten up more than 12, I’ve taken the air out of the ball and we have run the clock down. One of the easiest ways to lose leads is to take quick shots.

“I think we play pretty fast. It’s not like he walks the ball up,” Willard said, pointing to freshman point guard Acaden Lewis. “It’s not like we’re ever walking the ball up. It’s 1.6 seconds. Everyone gets stuck on that tempo s—.”

» READ MORE: Is Tyler Perkins Villanova’s new Josh Hart? He might be close enough.

Less than a month of regular-season basketball remains, so it feels like a good time to round up who could win Big 5 awards.

Let’s start with the coaches. The easy answer here is Villanova sweeping. Willard is on his way to stopping the three-year NCAA drought on the men’s side. Denise Dillon has her fifth 20-win season in six years as Wildcats coach. But those are the obvious answers in part because they coach teams that entered the season with at-large NCAA Tournament chances.

But how about Mountain MacGillivray, the La Salle women’s coach? The Explorers went 3-15 in the Atlantic 10 last season. They’ve doubled that total so far in 2025-26 and still have five games left. And what about Adam Fisher? The Temple men’s coach had to rebuild another roster in the offseason and has the Owls at 7-4 in the American Conference and in the mix. Or Steve Donahue, who stepped into a weird situation at St. Joseph’s, got off to a slow start, and has the Hawks in fourth place in the A-10?

As for player of the year on the men’s side, Villanova’s Tyler Perkins and Lewis have good arguments, as do Penn’s Ethan Roberts, Derek Simpson of St. Joe’s, and Temple’s Derrian Ford. On the women’s side, it might be Villanova sophomore Jasmine Bascoe’s award to lose. But La Salle’s Ashleigh Connor is having a great season, as is Drexel’s Amaris Baker, and Gabby Casey of St. Joe’s.

» READ MORE: La Salle’s loyal baseball community restored the program. Now it’s time to get it ‘back on the map.’

The Villanova women won by 40 Wednesday night at Xavier and Bascoe reached the 1,000-point plateau in less than two full seasons. The Wildcats are rolling. They’re 13-3 in the Big East and firmly in second place, two games clear of Seton Hall in the loss column.

But they’re also firmly on the NCAA Tournament bubble. ESPN’s latest bracketology had the Wildcats as a No. 10 seed and in the “last four byes” group. The projected field capped just five spots behind them.

Like the men, the women are in Omaha, Neb., this weekend. They play a Creighton team on Sunday that they already beat by 10 at home. It’s not a great time to have a slip-up, because after that it’s the annual home game vs. No. 1 UConn, which is undefeated and already beat Villanova by 49. Just two games are on the schedule after that: a home game vs. fourth-place Marquette and a road showdown at Seton Hall. Then comes the conference tournament.

It’s crunch time for the lady Cats.

We’ve mentioned a few times in recent weeks that the Villanova men are closing in on locking up an at-large NCAA Tournament bid. The Wildcats are at 99% to make the NCAA Tournament, according to Bart Torvik’s analytics site.

Since we last took stock of the Big 5 men’s teams, a few more got on the positive side of .500 in league play, which brings a better possibility of running the table come conference tournament time.

What’s Torvik’s math — which is based on thousands of simulations — for the rest of the pack?

The Big 5’s streak of no men’s teams looks like it’s coming to an end. Just don’t count on Villanova having any company at the dance.