Spellman’s news splash leaves Wright high, but roster shy
RADNOR » As Donte DiVincenzo and Omari Spellman waded through the NBA predraft process, Villanova coach Jay Wright wondered what his roster would look like next season.
Would he player back?
By Tuesday night, during a team gathering at his home, Wright had his answer. Spellman, a redshirt freshman, will stay in the NBA draft and hire an agent.
“He told me at my house, at our Wright said.
The 6-foot-9 Spellman announced his decision to the world on Instagram Wednesday afternoon. He is the fourth member of Villanova’s national championship team to leave school early for the NBA, joining DiVincenzo, a redshirt sophomore, junior guard Jalen Brunson and redshirt junior swingman Mikal Bridges.
“We’re going to be a young team,” Wright said. “We have a lot of work to do, but it was bound to happen some year. We’ve been very fortunate a lot of years where guys have decided to stay. It turned out that this was the best move for all of these guys, and now we have to kind of build it up again and that’s kind of exciting.”
Wright knew he was going to lose Brunson, the consensus national Player of the Year, and Bridges, a first-team All-America selection. That was a given. Bridges is a projected lottery pick and Brunson is considered a late first- or second-round selection. Plus, both players have graduated and played on two national championship teams, so there was no reason to stick around for another year.
DiVincenzo and Spellman, however, are a different story. There was very little, if any, talk of them leaving early during the course of the season. All that changed, though, in the NCAA Tournament. DiVincenzo’s stock rose dramatically when he scored a career-high 31 points in the national championship game and was named the Most Outstanding have one, both or neither pool,” Player of the Final Four. It continued to rise with impressive performances at the NBA Draft combine and in individual workouts, which is what convinced him to remain in the draft.
Interest in Spellman rose steadily through his first Villanova season, to the point where he felt it was necessary to test the NBA waters. The reviews from the combine and individual workouts were positive enough that Spellman decided to take the leap, too, with Wright’s blessing.
“They’re both in the same range of midto-late first round, slight chance of second round,” Wright said. “You really can’t get much better than that unless you’re going to be a lottery pick, so it’s really a good opportunity for both of them.”
Wright will be on hand to see how his players make out in the draft, which is June 21 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
“I was going with Mikal anyway so it will be an exciting night,” Wright said.
Spellman’s decision to remain in the draft means the Wildcats will have a vastly different team than the one Wright and his staff planned on after winning their second national championship in three years. The Wildcats have lost 60 percent of their minutes played, 70 percent of the scoring, 59 percent of the rebounding and 65 percent of the assists per game from the team that posted a program-best 36-4 record and whipped Michigan, 79-62, in the national championship game April 2 at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
“We’ve got two proven players returning in Phil (Booth) and Eric (Paschall),” Wright said. “We have a lot of young guys who have to prove themselves. That’s just what a young team is. I’d rather have the guys back, but it’s kind of exciting. We’ve had four or five years in a row that we knew we had a good team coming back, you knew who the guys were. You just had to get them to be the best they can be. Now, we have a lot of question marks. That’s a different kind of coaching. It’s exciting. It’s going to be a challenge.”
Booth and Paschall are the only returning starters from the national championship game. Booth started for both national championship teams. Guard Collin Gillespie, forward Dhamir Cosby-Roundtree and swingman Jermanine Samuels were key contributors off the bench as freshmen, so they have experience, too. In addition, forward Dylan Painter is coming off a redshirt year.
The rest of the rotation will be made up of highly regarded recruits Jahvon Quinerly, Cole Swider and Brandon Slater, and guard Joe Cremo, a graduate transfer from Albany who is immediately eligible to play.
That leaves Villanova with two available scholarships, which means the Wildcats could add another transfer or two or save the scholarships for the future.
“We’re open Wright said.
All that will eventually play whatever happens, Wright is ahead.
“There’s a side of you that realizes this is going to be a different team than we planned for, but you’re overwhelmingly excited for them and the long-term prospects for the program,” Wright said. “Kids want to play in the NBA, and so when these kids come in and they win and do well academically and they improve and then they get to chase their dreams, it helps us. It may hurt us this year, but in the long run I think it will help us.” to everything right now,”
out, but looking