Shortly after Temple was named the 18th team in ESPN’s 50 in 50, Eamonn Brennan has released Villanova as the 16th best program over the past 50 years. With 311 total points, based on a variety of different factors, the Wildcats came in just four points ahead of Temple.
Rollie Massimino spent 20 years as a coach at Villanova.
Brennan explains that Villanova dominated the 1970s and 1980s, being the 16th and 14th best team in those decades, respectively. For their 1985 NCAA tournament run (as an eight seed), the Wildcats received 30 points.
‘Nova has had two consensus All-Americans and a number of Elite Eight appearances. In the past 50 years, the Wildcats have 27 NCAA tournament appearances, more than Connecticut, Michigan State and Michigan.
Rollie Massimino is the clear “50 in 50″ coach, as he led Villanova to a championship and won 357 games as their head coach. Massimino also coached two of Villanova’s lesser known “starting five” in Ed Pickney and John Pinone.
Scottie Reynolds, who was a superstar on Jay Wright’s teams from 2006-2010, was named a guard, as was Kerry Kittles. Both of them were First-Team All-Americans and scored over 2000 points. Kittles had 2243 and Reynolds notched 2222 points in total.
Finally, Howard Porter rounds out the starting five. Porter led Villanova to the 1971 NCAA championship game and was the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player. He would later vacate that title due to being ruled ineligible by the NCAA.
That should be it for Philadelphia teams in ESPN’s 50 in 50. Do you think they were placed correctly? Should Villanova been behind Temple, or lower? Feel free to comment.
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Joe Fedorowicz
