Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart return to Villanova for a live taping of their podcast — featuring some special guests

The start of the college basketball season is still several weeks away, but Villanova got an excuse to break out its pep band early when Jalen Brunson and Josh Hart brought their podcast, the Roommates Show, to the Finneran Pavilion on Wednesday night.

The Knicks stars returned to Villanova for a live “homecoming” taping of the podcast, which they started in February 2024, with Matt Hillman, Hart’s teammate at Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., as the third co-host.

The former Villanova greats brought in additional star power to Wednesday night’s recording. Maddy Siegrist, Jay Wright, and Jason Kelce all appeared as special guests.

As much as the night was about Hart and Brunson returning to campus, it also provided an early look at Villanova’s men’s and women’s basketball teams. There were player introductions, a team three-point contest for the men’s and women’s teams, and a dunk contest for the men’s team — won by Tafara Gapare with a one-handed jam after leaping from the Big East logo painted in the lane.

Coaches Denise Dillon and Kevin Willard were introduced after their teams, with the last introduction saved for Willard. He walked from the far baseline to the stage in front of the baseline student section to AC/DC’s “Back in Black.”

Willard departed Maryland for Villanova in April after the Wildcats fired Kyle Neptune. Though it is Willard’s first stint on the Main Line, he knows Hart and Brunson from his time coaching against them as the head coach at Seton Hall, where he spent 12 seasons.

On stage with Willard on Wednesday, Hart had high praise for the coach whose Pirates defeated Villanova — the eventual 2016 national champion — in the final of the Big East tournament.

» READ MORE: Villanova men’s basketball schedule for 2025-26 is finalized with the release of Big East matchups

“There weren’t many teams that really played at our level,” Hart said. “Except for Seton Hall. The physicality that you guys brought, the toughness, the competitiveness. … Thank you for coming here [and] bringing that mentality.”

In a later segment that featured Wright as a guest reminiscing on the upcoming 10th anniversary of Villanova’s 2016 title, Wright identified the team’s loss to Seton Hall in the Big East tournament as the season’s “turning point.”

“[Seton Hall] would get Jalen [Brunson] switched on their bigger guard, and no one had done that all year,” Wright said. “And then we had to plan for that going into the NCAA tournament because that hurt us. Coach Willard did a great job. He had a great game plan. Thank God he’ll be doing that for us now, not against us.”

The praise Hart, Brunson, and Wright gave Willard was a show of support for the new coach. Willard said the support he has received from former Wildcats since taking over at Villanova has been “overwhelming.”

“I think what makes Villanova so special is the fact that the former players have so much buy-in to the program now,” Willard told The Inquirer on Tuesday. “They want to see it [be] great. They want to see more championships. And they understand that their support is as vital as anything else we do.”

Kelce was the show’s final guest of the night. Wearing a light blue Villanova hoodie, the former Eagles center talked with Brunson and Hart for around 30 minutes about Kelce’s New Heights podcast, the WWE, and the Tush Push. Hart, a Washington Commanders fan thanks to his D.C. roots, earned jeers from his homecoming crowd when he half-jokingly called for the play to be banned.

“It’s not legal and y’all know it,” Hart said. “Now, there’s false starts and all that. They need to ban it. After this year though, because I got Jalen Hurts in fantasy.”

» READ MORE: ‘New Heights’: Jason Kelce is ‘tired of talking about’ the Tush Push; Travis reflects on costly drop

While talking to Kelce, Brunson and Hart revealed that their inspiration to bring their podcast to Villanova came from the Kelce brothers taking New Heights to Cincinnati, where Jason and Travis played college football, in April 2024.

“We saw that and we were like, ‘All right, we’ve got to go back to ‘Nova,’” Brunson said. “Y’all gave us the inspiration to come back.”

New Heights has been one of the most successful athlete podcasts since the form became popular. Kelce said doing his podcast has allowed him to be “as authentic as possible.”

“Athletes have an ability to have a direct connection to show their personality,” Kelce said. “Who they are, their likes, their interests, what their view is on the game, what’s happening, with fans directly. … It’s really worked for us.”

As Brunson and Hart finished their segment with Kelce and addressed the crowd at the end of their show, they tipped that their next destination might be a bar popular with Villanova students.

“Appreciate y’all showing love,” Hart said. “We off to Kelly’s? We’re going to see y’all at Kelly’s?”