Rumors of Villanova’s interest in 7-foot-3 Italian center Luigi Suigo already were swirling when assistant coach Ricky Harris posted a photo last month on his Instagram page from Milan, not far from Suigo’s hometown of Tradate. Villanova was trying to keep its pursuit of Suigo under the radar, but Harris’s post only fueled the speculation.
Villanova is visiting Suigo in Milan! The staff is all-in on adding the future NBA center! Kevin Willard really wants the cherry on top for this roster rebuild!
Let’s play a little game of Two Truths and a Lie.
No, Villanova didn’t send Harris to Milan to visit its next center. The other things are true, though. And the lie is only a partial one. It wasn’t Harris visiting Suigo, it was Willard. Harris was just in Italy enjoying an offseason vacation, with the bulk of the roster overhaul already done. But it wasn’t Milan where Willard went, it was Belgrade, Serbia, where Suigo played this past season with Mega Basket of the Adriatic League.
“Belgrade was beautiful,” Willard said Monday, nine days after Suigo announced he was leaving the NBA draft and signing with Villanova. “Food was great, people were awesome.”
It was a short business trip, less than 48 hours. Willard had spent the past month reassembling the Wildcats’ roster. Only two players who dressed in a game from last season’s team, Tyler Perkins and Matt Hodge, returned. The staff surrounded them with plenty of talent, but still needed a true center to round out the roster. Any starting-caliber center would have been fine. The offseason had largely been a success even after losing a few top players like Acaden Lewis and Bryce Lindsay to the transfer portal.
“We could have gone in a couple directions,” Willard said of the center spot. “For us, it was like, all right, how are we trying to win a championship here?”
On film, Suigo looked the part of a player who could take the roster to the next level. The size component is obvious. But Suigo is a “really skilled center that can shoot it, that can pass at a high level,” Willard said. “I think one of his best attributes is that he’s extremely unselfish. He’s a great passer.”
Willard wanted more than film studying, though, so he got on a plane and flew halfway across the world to watch Suigo practice in person, to meet with his coaches, to sit down with him for dinner.
“Sometimes you can watch clips and you can get fooled,” Willard said. “When I went over there and talked to him in person, met him in person, and saw him play, it was like, yeah, this kid is the real deal.
“He’s very professional. He knows what he wants. He knows how he wants to play. He knows where he needs to get better at.”
In 26 games with Mega Basket, Suigo, 19, posted averages of 7.9 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 1 block in 18.8 minutes. He shot 64.9% on his 111 two-point shots, 27.1% on 48 three-point attempts, and 64.7% on 34 free throws.
Draft evaluators had Suigo projected near the end of the first round or early in the second round. Luring a player out of that range surely was costly for Villanova. Willard declined to discuss financials with The Inquirer. But the region’s rich Italian-American culture and the timing of watching the Knicks on their championship run with Jalen Brunson, Mikal Bridges, and Josh Hart were added bonuses.
Plus, Suigo was open about wanting to be a top-20 pick throughout the draft process.
“I think he maybe would have gotten drafted late in the first round, but he doesn’t want that,” Willard said. “He wants to make sure when he gets drafted he’s going to play. The big thing is I think he needs to get Americanized a little bit, to American basketball. I think that’s why college will be really good for him. Get in shape a little bit, just kind of get used to American basketball. I think once he does, the sky is the limit for him.”
Sky’s the limit for the team, too?
The offseason had a clear objective.
“We wanted to make sure that we just didn’t get manhandled the way we got manhandled last year against the top teams,” Willard said.
He was talking about national champion Michigan and the two top Big East teams, Connecticut and St. John’s. Willard’s first season at Villanova was a success. A streak of three consecutive missed NCAA Tournaments was stopped, though Villanova lost as a No. 8 seed in the first round because it lacked experience and physicality against a veteran Utah State team.
The first additions of the offseason aimed to address that. Villanova signed Oregon’s Kwame Evans Jr. and Ohio State’s Devin Royal. Both players are incoming seniors who averaged more than 13 points in the Big Ten last season. Evans is 6-10 and Royal is 6-6 but is a physical player who averaged seven rebounds in 2024-25 and nearly six last season.
With those two and Perkins and Hodge in the fold, the attention turned to the backcourt, specifically to the point guard spot. Willard said he watched more film to fill this spot than any other position during the offseason. Perhaps, then, he could ace a quiz on Illinois-Chicago hoops. Elijah Crawford scored 14 points and dished out five assists in 26 minutes per game last season. More importantly, his decision-making out of pick-and-roll stood out, as did his 75.3% rate from the free-throw line.
Crawford is the likely starting point guard next to Perkins, with Royal, Evans, and Suigo rounding out the starting five.
Backcourt depth was a problem at times last season. On paper, it won’t be in 2026-27. The Wildcats added Cornell shooting guard Jake Fiegen, who Willard said “analytically, was probably one of the highest-rated guys.” Fiegen shot 41.4% from three-point range on 5.5 attempts per game. He thrived in catch-and-shoot situations, of which he will have plenty with this Villanova roster.
Then there’s St. Bonaventure transfer Buddy Simmons. Willard said the staff was actually watching another Atlantic 10 player when they became enamored with Simmons, a 5-11 guard who scored 16.4 points per game and shot 42.5% from deep. While Fiegen is more of a standstill shooter, Simmons produces off the dribble.
Incoming freshman guard Adam Oumiddoch also is expected to contribute right away. He’ll add to a versatile bench that also includes Hodge, who Willard said is tracking toward being ready for the beginning of the season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ACL in March.
Evans could play some minutes at center, as could returning redshirt freshman Nico Onyekwere.
“We can play small or we can play really big,” Willard said. “That was my goal. Last year we were kind of hampered in how we could play. This year I think we have so much more flexibility.”
Signing a 7-3 center helps.
But Suigo’s signing should have done more than raise the expectations for the 2026-27 season. Sure, the Wildcats may get some preseason top 25 love. But they also showed they can compete financially with other programs.
“From Father Peter to the board to our alumni and our donors, everyone understands how important Villanova basketball is,” Willard said. “We will never be the highest spender. That’s not in our DNA and it’s not what it is. But I will say that the university understands and financially has been extremely supportive of this program and the women’s program.”
About those expectations …
“I’m the head coach at Villanova,” Willard said. “The expectations are huge every year. I knew that when I took this job. I knew that when I took the Maryland job. It’s just part of the job. It’s what makes this job so great. You want those expectations.”
It’s what you fly to Serbia for.
