Villanova’s bad Big East tournament loss shouldn’t mar Kevin Willard’s good work. Just ask Dan Hurley.

NEW YORK — The most compelling coach in college basketball had already complemented his players for putting a “choke job” behind them and delivering a crisp and easy victory in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals. And now Dan Hurley stopped near a loading area inside Madison Square Garden late Thursday night, pausing to pass out more praise, this time to a competitor and friend who was about to suffer his own surprising and frustrating defeat.

Maybe Hurley should have held back his kind words for Kevin Willard. Maybe he should have remembered that anything can happen in March — because a couple of hours later anything did. Georgetown, seeded 11th in the Big East, knocked Villanova out of this tournament, 78-64, and probably knocked the Wildcats down a seed in the NCAA Tournament. It wasn’t a crushing loss. But it was an unexpected one, and it tempered the flattery that Hurley had heaped on Willard earlier in the night. Villanova had been nothing more than mediocre for three years under Kyle Neptune, and UConn and St. John’s had pulled away from the Big East’s other nine programs, and the way Hurley sees it, Willard restored some prominence to the Wildcats and some balance to the conference.

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“Thank God for Kevin coming to ‘Nova,” Hurley said after UConn crushed Xavier, 93-68, and before Georgetown upset Villanova. “Thank God Coach [Rick] Pitino came to St. John’s. Thank God that UConn returned to the Big East. I mean, think about where we’re at right now league-wise. And obviously, it’s not a typical year for Creighton, not a typical year for Xavier, injuries for Marquette. … Kevin coming in has saved this league this year — Kevin is one of the best coaches in college basketball — or we’re a two-bid league.”

Hurley had melted down last Saturday in the closing seconds of a 68-62 loss to Marquette, bumping an official and earning a $25,000 fine from the Big East. Two national championships at UConn, a top-five team this season, and the man carries out a one-man tragicomic play on the sideline every game. Even Thursday night, in a win that was never in doubt, it was all there: the gestures, the gesticulation, the inching out on the court until he was practically standing on the closest three-point arc, the shouting, the pointing, the pain. Willard never lost his cool to that extent Thursday night. His was more of a slow smolder over his team’s inability, from late in the first half through the entire second half, to quell Georgetown’s energy and ferocity.

The Hoyas outrebounded Villanova, 46-25, and for the second time in less than two weeks, the bright lights and big-city stage of the Garden seemed to overwhelm the Wildcats. First a 32-point loss to St. John’s on Feb. 28, now an early exit from the best conference tournament in the country … at the hands of a 16-17 team that they had beaten twice during the regular season.

“When you have a young basketball team that has played really well all year long and has had some struggles in big games, that’s part of the growing process,” Willard said. “That doesn’t stop us from boxing out, though.”

With the Big East tournament still days away last week, Willard had spoken of this Villanova season much in the same way that Hurley had — as one that was already a success. A deep run this week at the Garden or next week in the NCAA Tournament would be a reward for accomplishing the harder goals of bringing Villanova basketball back to relevance.

“It’s the right first step I needed to take,” Willard said. “Knowing the tradition of this program, being talked about for the NCAA Tournament is where we need to be. We still need to take a huge step next year, in my opinion, with our nonconference scheduling. That’s my next step — to make sure we’re in that conversation nationally.”

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That future feels slightly more distant now, if only because the Wildcats were so flat Thursday night in an important game against what had been a lesser opponent. Win at least one next week in the NCAAs, and they’ll rinse away that sour taste, and it’ll be easier to chalk up this performance to the team’s collective inexperience. But that challenge will be more difficult now. They have likely gone from a No. 7 seed to a No. 8, and even if they get out of the first round, it will almost certainly mean a matchup against a No. 1 seed.

“We’re a young team, but we haven’t really played in March, a lot of these guys, or meaningful games in March,” junior guard Tyler Perkins said. “It’s definitely an adjustment, a learning curve.”

There, Perkins provided a timely reminder of the task Willard took on when he replaced Neptune, when he took command of a program that as recently as four years ago was in the Final Four but has known nothing but high expectations and disappointing results since. A victory Thursday would have been a nice validation of the progress Villanova has made under Willard. The loss was an indication that he still has a long way to go to get the program back fully to where he and everyone connected to it wants it to be. “It’s great to have him in the league,” Hurley said, “even though it sucks to play against him.” No such worries Friday night. Not yet.