No. 21 Villanova Wildcats just suffered their first loss of the 2023-24 college basketball season, and it's a painful one. Following easy back-to-back wins over American University and Le Moyne, the expectation was that Villanova basketball would take care of business Monday night versus Penn Quakers, but the total opposite happened, with the Wildcats absorbing a 76-72 upset loss on the road.

Villanova basketball entered the game favored by double-digits to win against the Quakers, but the Wildcats simply did not have enough to prevent Penn from pulling off a shocker.

“Penn was picked 5th in the Ivy League Preseason Poll after it lost Jordan Dingle — the second-leading scorer in the country last season — to the transfer portal. It just beat Villanova at The Palestra. Anarchy? Nope. Just College Basketball,” posted Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports on X.

“Quakers hold on for the upset. Villanova is showing symptoms of having the same issues that plagued it last season. Sets up a big game against Maryland on Friday with both squads needing to get back on track,” said Brian Rauf.

From Kevin Sweeney, who also had something to say about Villanova basketball head coach Kyle Neptune: “Big step back tonight for Villanova. Wildcats lose a Big 5 game to Penn and muster just 6 assists all night. The benefit of the doubt talent-wise they got last year is no longer there. Bad loss for Kyle Neptune.”

“To be fair to Kyle Neptune, I assumed it had been forever since Jay Wright lost a Big 5 game. It was 2019 — at Penn. That team ended up being just OK by late-era Wright standards, but still, it happens”, chimed in Eamonn Brennan.

The loss is a tough one to swallow for Villanova basketball, to say the least. And it could potentially be one that would haunt them on Selection Sunday, as the Quakers only had a NET ranking of 141 at the time of the meeting with the Wildcats.

Senior guard Justin Moore led Villanova basketball with 25 points with seven rebounds and three assists, while Jordan Longino came off the bench and fired 14 points. Villanova outshot Penn from the field, 63-47, but only converted 34.9 percent of their shots from the field.

The Wildcats will look to recover this coming Friday when they host the Maryland Terrapins.