Villanova Fires Kyle Neptune Amid Performance Scrutiny

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00:00The news around the college basketball world is a big one, as Villanova has fired Kyle

00:09Neptune, no longer their head coach, one of the premier programs in this sport.

00:16When Jay Wright was at the helm, he steps aside.

00:21I think it was tied to NIL complaints, wah, wah, wah.

00:26Kyle Neptune, though, ultimately could not fill those shoes.

00:30The thing is, that was always going to be the case.

00:34Jay Wright was ripping off championship after championship.

00:37Kyle Neptune was struggling to make the tournament.

00:41And clearly, Villanova was giving Kyle Neptune the opportunity to make a run in the Big East

00:47and to win it outright.

00:50And if they did, obviously, that could have changed things.

00:53And they lose to UConn, Eric Dixon goes out, kind of sad, unfortunately, country's leading

01:00scorer shoots two of 15.

01:03But now, and I'm going to go to you, Coach, because I know you've been waiting on this

01:06for some time, not that you've been rooting against them, but you've been tracking this

01:09program very closely, Kyle Neptune out at Villanova.

01:13Not stunned.

01:14You know, and talking to people I know, you know, basically, it was, he had to get a run.

01:19He had to get a run.

01:21I think the game, honestly, that may have sealed them in, two of them, is up by four

01:25against Georgetown in the last 90 seconds a couple weeks ago.

01:28And then the 15-point lead versus UConn was unfathomable when they just completely self-destructed.

01:36And they had a bunch of close losses like that.

01:37So I'm not stunned that Kyle has let go.

01:40He was very well-respected.

01:42People wanted him gone last year.

01:43President wanted to give him a little bit more time.

01:45But now it comes to the point where you got to go outside the family.

01:50Villanova is a team.

01:51You compare it to a team like Seton Hall that had $1.5 million in NIL money.

01:55Eric Dixon got that alone, himself.

01:58So the coffers are there.

02:00And I know the NIL money is definitely there.

02:03So it'll be interesting to see, Joe, where does Villanova go?

02:06Maybe a guy like Ryan Odom, son of a coach, East Coast guy at VCU.

02:12Now there's talk about Virginia, but you got to go get a guy and go get a home run right

02:16now.

02:17I mean, think about what Jay Wright built at Villanova, back-to-back national championships.

02:22It's eerily similar to the dominance, not on the same level, but Nick Saban in Alabama.

02:27When you're the pinnacle of college football and college basketball, respectively, you

02:31have to keep that train in motion, right?

02:34Same pressure on Caleb DeBoer is the pressure now in terms of that Kyle Neptune had.

02:39And you just look at the resume, 70-62 overall.

02:42I mean, he was a .500 coach at Fordham for one year.

02:45And his best season was this year at 19-13.

02:48Never finished better than sixth overall in terms of the Big East.

02:52That dominance wasn't there.

02:54You didn't have elite top-five talent that you could hang your hat on and say, hey, we

02:58have this to build on.

03:01It's unfortunate.

03:02But again, this is the problem with NIL, and this is the problem when we see star coaches

03:06leave like Jay Wright.

03:08You know, Villanova, it's in Philly.

03:11It's a blue-collar team, blue-collar town.

03:14It's a similar situation to what Rick Pitino had taking over St. John's.

03:18You really have to make an impact, coach, within your first couple of years.

03:22Yeah, and I think I would push against that they did have, at least last year, top-15

03:27talent.

03:28When you talked about Eric Dixon, when you talked about TJ Bomba, when you talked about

03:30having Justin Moore, when you talked about having Malik Armstrong, right?

03:33You had players.

03:35And I think this is where you've got to be careful with the portal.

03:40You've got to get it right.

03:41You just don't blow it up and get the best players.

03:44You've got to find a way to mix in freshmen with the seniors and a couple of transfers

03:51here and there to figure it out.

03:53And I think I talked about this on my podcast a couple of days ago.

03:56Two people have figured it out, one in the men's game, one in the women's game, Pitino

04:00and Mark Campbell of TCU.

04:02And what they have done is they have flipped the script on how you can turn it around quick,

04:08and now coaches will not get the second year, the second contract, five, six years.

04:13You may be out in three or four years, Kevin, if you don't win.

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