The persistence of Tyler Perkins helped Villanova get back to the NCAA Tournament

SAN DIEGO — Tyler Perkins grabbed the nameplate from the podium Thursday afternoon at Viejas Arena after his interview session finished and wanted to take it as a souvenir before he was informed that it wasn’t yet his to keep.

Perkins then took his phone out of his pocket and snapped a photo of the name tag, which had the March Madness logo, his name, and the Villanova “V.”

The Wildcats (24-8) are back in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022. They play ninth-seeded Utah State on Friday (4:10 p.m., TNT) and, with a win, likely would get a shot at top-seeded Arizona on Sunday.

» READ MORE: Villanova vs. Utah State: Rollie Massimino connection, Ralph Willard’s defense, and more things to know

That nameplate stage probably felt pretty far away just a year ago. Kyle Neptune, the coach who recruited Perkins to Villanova after his freshman season at Penn, had been fired. Villanova was courting Kevin Willard and gearing up for the College Basketball Crown, a consolation tournament that few people attended or watched.

“That’s a lot different than the tournament, March Madness,” Perkins said. “I’m just glad that we’re in it, but we still have more work to do, more games to play.”

They have at least one, but they probably wouldn’t have any meaningful contests left if not for Perkins’ breakout junior season, and if Willard didn’t see the value in keeping him around after he scored just 6.3 points to go with 4.3 rebounds in 25.8 minutes per game last year.

“There was no one on the roster that had played in the Big East,” Willard said. “So it was kind of important to me to keep someone that knew the league and kind of knew what was going on. I just told him that he was going to be a big part of what we’re going to try to build.”

Perkins listened.

“When I had my talks with Coach Willard and he told me about what his plan was and what his vision was, I believed in it,” he said. “And that’s one of the reasons why I came back.”

How many people could have predicted this, though? Sure, Perkins matched the season average of 13.7 points that he had as a freshman at Penn, but the Quakers relied heavily on his offense, and the Ivy League isn’t the Big East.

This season, Perkins almost single-handedly won some Big East games for Villanova. The Wildcats won six consecutive games after a disappointing overtime loss at UConn in late January, and Perkins averaged 18 points and 6.8 rebounds during that six-game run.

He has hit timely shots, grabbed critical rebounds, and been a reliable force on the defensive end. The Wildcats survived a scare from Marquette and won by three after Perkins blocked Adrien Stevens’ last-second three-point shot.

“I think as the year has gone on, he’s gotten better and better, not only on the court, but I think as a leader,” Willard said. “I think he finally started understanding what his role is on the court and off the court, and I think guys really listen to him.”

Acaden Lewis certainly has. He’s a flashy, playmaking point guard who has at times relied on Perkins’ steady personality and playing style to help him navigate a freshman year that hasn’t been linear.

“Tyler’s been great for me and just the whole team in general,” Lewis said. “I think he’s done a great job of keeping us mellow in a lot of games and he’s always just a voice, something that you hear.”

» READ MORE: Like father, like son: Villanova’s run to the NCAA Tournament has Ralph Willard’s hands on it

Perkins has evolved from a three-star recruit to an average Big East player to one who draws comparisons to Josh Hart. He’s a critical part of an NCAA Tournament team that will need him to do all the little things and big things in order to get past Utah State on Friday. That includes playing small-ball power forward in a shorthanded rotation.

“It’s really just the fruits of the labor, all the hard hours, weeks, summers I put in,” he said. “It’s paying off.”

Forget the end of last season. Imagine how far Perkins felt from Thursday’s podium last January, when he endured the worst shooting slump of his life. Perkins missed 28 consecutive shots from three-point range and had eight games without a make from deep. It was a 1-for-31 drought over a 10-game stretch that saw Villanova go 4-6 and put its NCAA Tournament hopes on life support.

Perkins said his family reminded him last year about the law of averages, which put this year’s hot streak into perspective, too.

“It’s definitely the end of two spectrums,” he said. “It just shows that if you stay with it and you don’t give up and you stay levelheaded, it’ll all work out.”