PHILADELPHIA — Kyle Neptune is a human with functioning ears, and while he did his best to say all the things he thought he was supposed to say while his Villanova men’s basketball team struggled in his second year as head coach, he did at times hear the booing.

The frustration reached its crescendo as Neptune walked off the floor of Finneran Pavilion on March 20, when Villanova was knocked from the National Invitation Tournament in front of a light crowd on its home floor. A season that started with so much promise — a transfer portal haul combined with a tournament win in the Bahamas had Wildcats fans excited — had gone awry.

A five-game losing streak in January made the path to the real NCAA Tournament too difficult to overcome, and getting bumped from the NIT at home against an Atlantic 10 team, with the expensive roster and talent that Villanova had, warranted the reaction it got: boos and chants calling for Neptune to be fired.

“There are certain things that just come with the seat you’re in as a coach,” Neptune told The Philadelphia Inquirer Thursday. “If you’re not getting things done at the highest level, sometimes you will be criticized, and that’s the life we chose and you either embrace everything that comes with the life you chose, or you don’t and you complain about it.”

Neptune isn’t complaining about it now and he wasn’t complaining about it then. The season ended late on a Wednesday night, the day before the tournament people around here really care about was set to begin, and Neptune drove to work Thursday morning, with the thought of being fired not on his mind, he said.

“I never thought about that,” Neptune said. “I really truly try to live just putting my best foot forward. We talk to our guys about attitude and doing the next best action. I can’t say that to our guys with a straight face and have them truly believe it if I don’t live in that same mantra and I don’t live the same way.”

‘We didn’t meet the mark’

Later that Thursday, Villanova athletic director Mark Jackson publicly backed Neptune and affirmed that a change at head coach was not coming. He described Neptune that day as being “angry and motivated.” Neptune said Thursday that he did his best to channel those emotions into the next steps. Villanova had to figure out its roster. Who was staying? Who was leaving? What holes did his staff need to fill? What lessons could they take from last season’s transfer portal market to apply to this one?

Neptune can seem a bit robotic at times. While Jay Wright gets credit for being affable and perfect for his new job as a television analyst and the face of commercials, Neptune learned these clichés from the master himself. He uses the word “attitude” the same way Wright did. He talks about the next play and not dwelling on the last one the same way Wright did. It has infiltrated almost every aspect of his professional life.

Neptune said he hasn’t stewed in the misery of it all. “To go back and live in those emotions does nothing for me or our program,” he said. But he knows Villanova is a place where competing for Big East championships are the expectation, and he’s a human. So there were feelings on that night March 20 and the morning after.

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