PHILADELPHIA — Not long into the news conference Tuesday morning at which he introduced Eric Roedl as Villanova’s new athletic director, the Rev. Peter Donohue, the university’s president, began to list Roedl’s responsibilities in his previous job. As the University of Oregon’s deputy AD, Roedl was in charge of the school’s football, men’s basketball, baseball, and tennis programs, all as part of his day-to-day oversight of an athletic department with a budget of $145 million.

Donohue paused after mentioning that figure. “Just a little, please,” he said. Later, someone asked Roedl what he could bring with him from Oregon that would help him most at Villanova. Before Roedl could answer, Donohue jumped in.

“I hope,” he said, “their budget.”

The interjection was funny and telling. It was a reminder of the true priorities of everyone who controls a Division I athletic program, even a program such as Villanova’s — one that ostensibly aspires to balance education, character development and competitive excellence. Roedl won’t have the resources on the Main Line that he had in Eugene; according to the Department of Education, the Villanova athletic department’s operating expenses from June 2022 through May 2023 were not quite $59 million.

That financial gap is wide, but the expectation gap, at least with respect to Villanova’s crown-jewel sport, won’t be. What Roedl has now is a passionate booster base with deep pockets and a men’s basketball program that less than three years ago was the best in the Big East and has been declining in quality and relevance ever since. Men’s basketball is the athletic department’s revenue-driver. It’s an inextricable part of the university’s brand. That reality means that Roedl’s most meaningful experience, the period of his life that best prepared him for this job, wasn’t the four years he spent at Villanova as an undergraduate and a member of the tennis team. It was his 13 years at Oregon, at a bigger institution that better exemplifies the increasingly transactional nature of college athletics.

In the wake of name, image and likeness and pay-for-play, nobody has to pussyfoot around anymore. At the highest levels, the schools are there to win and make money, and the athletes are there to win and make money. And if they don’t, someone will be heading out the door, voluntarily or otherwise.

“There are a number of things,” Roedl said, “that go into evaluating programs and coaches: the academic performance of the student-athletes, the culture of the program, the trajectory in recruiting, obviously on-the-court results, community engagement. Are people engaged? Are people excited? Are we selling tickets? Are we raising money? Those are all things that go into evaluating a program.”

So what does Roedl see when he looks at Villanova’s men’s basketball program — 3-4 after its one-point loss Sunday to Maryland, without an NCAA Tournament berth since 2022, having won just over half its games since Kyle Neptune took over as head coach? He described Neptune and women’s coach Denise Dillon as “outstanding people, great leaders for these programs. I look forward to partnering with them.”

He gave no indication of how long he would be inclined to allow such a partnership to last, though, and inside Finneran Pavilion on Tuesday morning, Neptune was sitting in the front row throughout the press conference, leaning forward, his left hand on his chin.

“There are no more important hires that you have than head coaches and the impact they have on student-athletes,” said Roedl, who graduated from Villanova in 1997. “Today’s head coach has to really approach things in a certain way to make sure you’re connecting with your student-athletes. I think that connectivity piece is more important than ever with the transfer portal and mental-health pressures and outside challenges and so many of the outside pressures and influences we have — and you mentioned the transactional nature of college athletics. The coaches who can connect are the ones who are going to be successful in building that kind of culture that’s going to last and be sustainable.”

If Neptune is connecting with his players in that way, it’s not apparent in the Wildcats’ performance on the court, and it hasn’t been apparent, really, since he took over. With more and more Pavilion seats empty on game nights, with Villanova’s status within the Big East slipping, Neptune had good reason to strike so intense a pose as he listened to his new boss introduce himself Tuesday. Roedl has to know what his first order of business is here. He won’t have $145 million at his disposal to get Villanova’s men’s basketball program back where it used to be, but he’ll be expected to bring just a little of that bottom-line approach back to his alma mater just the same.

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