Big East Christmas Lists 2017: Villanova

You pull out your chair and take a seat. Scooch your chair closer to the desk, and place down your mom’s finest card stock. Grabbing a Pilot G2 (the best gel-ink pen in the industry), you carefully write down:

Dearest Santa,

Hope all is well up North, and my please extend my warmest regards to Mrs. Claus. All I want for the holidays for my Villanova Wildcats is—

And then you draw a blank. What do you get the friend who has everything? An Amazon Echo? No, they got those last Christmas. Bitcoin? Nah, they bought into cryptocurrency early.

After multiple rounds of hot chocolate with extra marshmallows to really stimulate thinking, here are my winter wishes for the Wildcats:

Elon Musk to stop playing around with SpaceX and build a time machine to relive The Shot™.

The man is sending rockets into space, but I can’t get a small time machine to watch Kris Jenkins down a three at NRG Stadium? Feels suspicious.

Pavilion construction to be complete.

Playing at the Wells Fargo Center this season has certainly been fantastic. 12-0 in Philadelphia’s grand stadium is a proud accomplishment. But there is something special to be said about home games played in a court at the heart of campus, and I’m ready to return to some Main Line nostalgia.

Phil Booth to maintain his groove.

After sitting out nearly an entire season due to injury, Booth’s return to donning the ‘Nova jersey has been spotty. Lacking offensive spark in some games, but then splashing all over the perimeter in others, if Booth manages consistent shooting, Villanova’s no. 1 ranking is guaranteed to stay for weeks on end.

Josh Hart to give me courtside Lakers tickets.

For only one game! This feels like a reasonable request. As the current face of nabbing double-doubles in the NBA, I’m sure this is easily done.

Reaching the Final Four.

Fine, fine. I’ll settle for making it past the second weekend in March. But if the March Madness gods are listening, this team has shooting depth, defensive strongholds, and (thanks to Jalen Brunson) a “high basketball IQ.” Feels like a Final Four formula to me.

Michael Jordan to come to Delaware to play a game of H-O-R-S-E against Donte DiVincenzo to establish once-and-for-all the real “Michael Jordan of Delaware.”

This is self-explanatory.