{"id":871100,"date":"2026-10-29T20:27:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-29T20:27:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/871100\/"},"modified":"2026-10-29T20:27:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-29T20:27:13","slug":"villanova-arrives-in-rome-ahead-of-college-basketball-season-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/871100\/","title":{"rendered":"Villanova Arrives In Rome Ahead Of College Basketball Season Opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Villanova Basketball has officially touched down in Rome.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">The Wildcats are preparing to take on Notre Dame on Sunday to tip off the 2026-27 college basketball season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Head coach Kevin Willard led Villanova off the plan on Thursday morning ahead of the first game of the season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">\u201cAt first, I didn\u2019t think it was going to be that big of a deal, but when we landed, you understand that he is our best alumnus and most notable alumnus,\u201d Willard said via AP News. \u201cHe is also the most famous person on Earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Willard, of course, is talking about Pope Leo XIV. He graduated from Villanova in 1977 with a Bachelor of Science in mathematics. Pope Leo is scheduled to hold a private audience of about 7,000 people on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Villanova also plans to visit the Spanish Steps and already drove past the Colosseum on the way to practice.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">For newcomer Luigi Suigo, this is an early homecoming and a chance for him to play his first game in a Villanova uniform in a familiar place.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Villanova will begin the season on Sunday at 9:30am against Notre Dame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Villanova Basketball has officially touched down in Rome. The Wildcats are preparing to take on Notre Dame on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":871101,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3723],"tags":[7,217,231,772,1544,7141],"class_list":["post-871100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ncaa-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-college-basketball","tag-ncaa","tag-ncaa-basketball","tag-ncaab","tag-villanova-basketball"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117526085167356403","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/871101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}