Villanova Wildcats NCAA Basketball News

OUTLOOK: The Big East Conference makes and the rest of the basketball world takes should be the theme for this league as it enters the 2009-10 campaign.

Scottie Reynolds' game-winning shot against Pitt in the Elite Eight lifted Villanova to the Final Four last season.

Villanova's basketball team will unofficially begin its season Thursday at the Wachovia Center with a 7 o'clock scrimmage against Kutztown, which is ranked as high as 16th in several preseason Division II polls.

Six months after North Carolina cut down the nets in Detroit, it's time to welcome back the sound of basketballs bouncing, sneakers squeaking and nets swishing to hardwoods across the country.

It should be another exciting season in the Big East. Once again, this league is so deep.

Coach: Jay Wright Last season's record: 30-8 Spotlight player Scottie Reynolds has been a 15-point scorer from the moment he walked onto the Villanova campus.

Scottie Reynolds passed up his chance to jump to the NBA. Jay Wright never seriously considered bolting the Wildcats for the Sixers coaching vacancy.

Villanova, which a week ago was picked to finish first in the Big East, is ranked fifth in the preseason Associated Press Top 25.

The Pitt men's basketball team was selected by league coaches to finish ninth among 16 teams at the Big East Conference's annual media day Wednesday morning at Madison Square Garden.

Jay Wright wanted to give Reggie Redding a summer pep talk. Wright saw how Villanova's senior guard was putting in the time to become a better player and setting a positive example as a team leader.

Jermaine Dixon drives on Villanova's Scottie Reynolds in the NCAA East Region final in Boston last season.

It was some time between the end of commissioner John Marinatto's speech and the horde of TV cameras, radio microphones and persistent questions that Jay Wright realized he was atop the new Big East.

Notre Dame senior forward Luke Harangody joined Georgetown great Patrick Ewing as the only players to be chosen Big East preseason player of the year more than once.

Coming off an NCAA Final Four appearance, Villanova is receiving all kinds of love from the preseason prognosticators, including the coaches in the Big East Conference yesterday.

Villanova has just received a verbal committment from 6-4 junior guard Ash Yacoubou from Long Island Lutheran, who combined with 6-7 Top 15 recruit Tobias Harris last year to lead LuHi to the New York State Class `A' championship.

Acharf Yacoubou drives down the court during a game last season. The Long Island Lutheran guard has committed to play for Jay Wright 's Villanova Wildcats .

WILDCATS NO. 1 -- Fresh off last season's Final Four appearance and sparked by the return of senior guards Scottie Reynolds and Reggie Redding and junior Corey Stokes, the Villanova Wildcats were handed the bull's-eye as the team to beat in the 2009-10 Big East preseason poll.

'New' was the buzzword during Wednesday's Big East Conference men's basketball media day.

Despite a trip to the Final Four last season, the University of Connecticut basketball team was ranked third in the Big East preseason poll.

College basketball season got under way recently with teams starting practice. It should be an interesting year for college basketball in the Philadelphia area and throughout the country.