The impossible task building Villanova’s Mount Rushmore since 2000

Building a Mount Rushmore for Villanova basketball post-2000 is mostly just an exercise in making everyone mad (even though that’s not the point of this article).

When a program wins two national championships and makes four Final Fours in under two decades, a top-four list becomes an impossible math problem. How do you weigh rings against talent, or foundational legacy against peak dominance?

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Chiseling just four faces means leaving off players who would have statues built for them at almost any other school. It’s a brutal process, and something tells me your list is probably completely different from mine.

But lines have to be drawn somewhere. Here are the four pillars of modern Villanova basketball. Bring on the disagreements.

Jalen Brunson

There is zero room for debate here. Brunson is the absolute apex of the modern era. The 2018 National Player of the Year operated with a level of poise and footwork that flipped college basketball on its head. He anchored the 2018 squad through arguably the most dominant tournament run in modern college basketball history.

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Two rings, consensus player of the year—he’s the first name on the mountain.

Josh Hart

If you need to explain Villanova’s identity to an outsider, just show them tape of Josh Hart. He was a 6-foot-5 guard/wing/forward who routinely out-rebounded opposing bigs and defended elite wings like his life depended on it.

As the competitive engine of the 2016 title team, Hart brought a specific edge that defined that entire locker room. He won Big East Player of the Year, won a championship, and never took a single possession off. If there were an Effort Hall of Fame, Hart would be one of the first inductees.

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Ryan Arcidiacono

This is where the debate is going to start, but Arch belongs on this mountain. People tend to forget that before the 2016 breakthrough, Villanova went through a brutal identity crisis in the early-to-mid 2010s (just in time for me to arrive on campus).

Arcidiacono…

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Publish date : 2026-06-02 14:00:00

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