Eric Dixon wasn’t about to let Villanova’s weird season and Kyle Neptune’s tenure end against Seton Hall

NEW YORK — The beauty of the Big East Tournament is in the setting and the stakes — the atmosphere and attention that a sold-out Madison Square Garden commands and the understanding that one bad night could end a team’s season. That potent combination usually makes for a great four days of hoops, but it doesn’t guarantee that the basketball itself will be beautiful. And for most of Wednesday night, the basketball that the Villanova Wildcats played in their 67-55 victory over Seton Hall wasn’t.

They spent several stretches of their first-round game putzing around against an inferior opponent, as if they wouldn’t have minded having to board an early bus back to the Main Line. In the first half, for instance, they committed eight turnovers and went nearly eight minutes without hitting a shot from the field, and twice, two of their players almost collided while running what presumably was an offensive set. Villanova still led by 18 at the break — because anything it did, Seton Hall did worse — but the Pirates opened the second half with an 11-2 spurt, cutting the Wildcats’ lead to eight. As crazy as it was to contemplate, it was possible Villanova might lose to a team that had won seven games, gone 2-18 in the Big East, and wasn’t even playing well.

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Until Eric Dixon pretty much decided Villanova wasn’t going to lose.

Villanova coach Kyle Neptune called a timeout with 15 minutes, 38 seconds left in regulation. Here’s how the next three minutes of game time unfolded for Dixon: three-pointer, spin move and bank shot for two, post-move layup with an and-one, another three-pointer. He scored 11 of the Wildcats’ 13 straight points over those 180 seconds. The leading scorer in the nation, averaging 23.6 points, Dixon put up just 19 on Wednesday night. He hadn’t scored at all before that three-minute flurry. “They forgot about me,” he said. But those 11 quick points probably saved Villanova’s night and Neptune’s job, at least for another 24 hours, buying the Wildcats a quarterfinal matchup against Dan Hurley and Connecticut and one more chance to extend what has been the weirdest season of Dixon’s five-year college career.

“Lucky for us, we treat every game like it’s our Super Bowl,” he said. “So that last game we just played was our most important game of the season, the most important game of my career.”

That Dixon would use that phrase — We treat every game like it’s our Super Bowl — might be the most predictable and reliable aspect of these last four months for Villanova. You can count on Neptune and his players to recite clichés, and you can count on Dixon to do his best to keep the Wildcats in a game or sometimes win it for them. That’s about it. The rest of the season has been an amalgam of losses that the Wildcats should have won, leads that they shouldn’t have squandered, and enough victories to keep their just-about-extinguished NCAA Tournament hopes flickering. They’re 19-13 now, and even another win or two here won’t be good enough to get them in. They can’t just make it to Saturday’s Big East championship game. They have to win it.

Is it possible? Anything is, but given their track record, no one should be anything but skeptical at best. It would be a surprise if they managed to beat UConn — the two-time-defending national champion — on Thursday night. But it would be no surprise, if they somehow happen to beat the Huskies and inspire some optimism about an improbable Big East Tournament run, to see them lose badly Friday, no matter their opponent. They’re Team Sybil, except for Dixon. Because the NCAA granted him and any other athlete who competed during the COVID-19 pandemic an extra year of eligibility, he already has played 157 games, more than anyone in the program’s history, and he needs just 17 points to eclipse Kerry Kittles as Villanova’s all-time leading scorer. It was clear early on that he wasn’t going to pass Kittles against Seton Hall — a scoreless first half, too slow a start. But he made up for it.

“That’s just the beauty of having an older guy there, a player of his talent,” said senior guard Jordan Longino. “Obviously, when we need him to score, he can score. We never really press. We never really force him the ball. But we know he can make plays.”

He has been the surest thing during a season in which nothing has been sure for Villanova. He was the most important person on the floor for them again Wednesday. If there was anyone who was going to make sure that the Wildcats didn’t go down in embarrassment, that Kyle Neptune and his coaches and players got one more night at the Garden, it was Eric Dixon. This time, it took him just three minutes to do it.