Season averages:
Points – 13.7
Rebounds – 5.4
Assists – 1.6
Steals – 1.2
Field goal percentage – 44%
Three-point percentage – 36.9%
Free-throw percentage – 74.5%
Season highs:
Points – 23 vs St. John’s
Rebounds – 11 at Creighton
Assists – 4 vs Butler
Steals – 4 (on several occasions)
Overall thoughts:
Tyler Perkins’ nickname should be “Elmer” given how well he keeps the Wildcats together.
Coming into the season, he was the only player returning who saw the court for Villanova in 2024-25. The Penn transfer had modest
production in a sixth-man role for the Wildcats, averaging 6.3 points in 25.8 minutes per game. Those numbers were sure to increase, but the questions were by how much and how will his efficiency be affected?
The answer to those questions were “a lot” and “positively.” The 6’4” junior more than doubled his points per game to 13.7 (good for 11th in the conference), and his stats went up across the board. Even his shooting percentages, which went up by 4% from the field, 1.7% from three-point range and 2.5% from the stripe. This all equated to the Big East Most Improved Player, and in my opinion should have gotten him more than All-Conference Third Team. Perkins had an incredible year.
Even though he never played for Jay Wright, he plays like someone who did. Perkins’ toughness, fundamentals and grit would have played well for the hall-of-famer. He justifiably draws some comparisons to former Wildcat Josh Hart when he’s in there outrebounding guys twice his size. There’s no better example of his toughness than the fact that he was recently seen with his right arm in a sling, suggesting that he played through a fairly-serious injury towards the end of the year.
Perkins developed more of his low-post game, which is another parallel to the Wright days. Kevin Willard would often draw up plays out of timeouts to get him on the block. He became more of a threat from deep, as well as honing the ability to jump stop and score when penetrating, either off of an isolation or a screen.
On defense, Perkins uses his strength to get into the opponent, often times allowing him to match up with taller players. Over the course of the season, I lost track of how many offensive possessions he kept alive from pure heart and determination.
This is all to say that Perkins has been the example of what we look for in Villanova Wildcat players, and I look forward to (hopefully) seeing him take yet another step as a senior. It would be nice to be able to play him less in the frontcourt, but regardless of what Perkins is asked to do, we know he’s going to attack it with everything he has.
