Villanova's loss to Columbia may already be college basketball's Upset of the Year

Columbia entered the 2024 season picked to finish fifth in the Ivy League. The Lions have not finished above .500 in a decade. It hasn’t defeated a team from the Big East over that span, either.

Well, at least it hadn’t until Wednesday night when Columbia walked into Finneran Pavilion as a 17-point underdog and delivered Villanova a stunning defeat, 90-80.

Congrats to anyone who took the Lions at 100-1 on the moneyline, but let’s be honest. This disaster is way more about what’s happened to Villanova than anything the Lions did right.

(Though shoutout to Columbia’s Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa and his 22 points, four assists and three steals in the win.)

2-0 Some tape from last night’s 90-80 upset over Villanova #RoarLionRoar // #OnlyHere // #MaxEffort pic.twitter.com/bqvEdyQbXp

— Columbia Men’s Basketball (@CULionsMBB) November 7, 2024

“If we had won that game, we would still have to get a lot better,” Villanova coach Kyle Neptune said after the loss. “We’re just not where we need to be right now. We’ve got to go back, watch this film, learn from it and move onto the next game and get better.”

We’ll see how much time the Wildcats give Neptune to right the ship. As ESPN’s Myron Medcalf noted, this is his sixth loss to a team that entered the game with a sub-100 ranking on KenPom since taking over for Jay Wright ahead of the 2022-23 season. He’s now 35–33 with two first-round exits in the NIT.

Villanova reached the Final Four in 2016, 2018 and 2022 and those teams seem lightyears away from where the program is now.

Less than a week into the season, college basketball has it’s first coach truly on the hot seat and it’s hard imagine Neptune will escape it quickly or easily.

In the meantime, consider this your invitation to fade the Wildcats until further notice. The Wildcats were 17-14-0 against the spread last season, 13-18-0 the year before and are now 0-2 ATS to begin the 2024-25 campaign.