Villanova Carries Pope Leo's Hometown Ties Into Rome Basketball Opener
Villanova's men's and women's basketball teams open the 2025-26 season in Rome on Sunday, Nov. 1, facing Notre Dame in a doubleheader billed as the Eternal City Tip-Off, held roughly 6 miles from the Vatican. The men's game airs on FOX and FOX One at 9:30 a.m. ET, followed by the women's matchup at noon ET. The event unfolds against the backdrop of Villanova's unique connection to Pope Leo XIV, the former Robert Prevost, who graduated from the school in 1977 with a mathematics degree and belongs to the Augustinian order that founded the university near Philadelphia in 1842.
Villanova is the only American university that counts a pope among its graduates, a distinction university president the Rev. Peter Donohue says has sharpened the school's international profile. "We certainly have a bigger footprint there now than we used to," Donohue said. "People do know who we are, just because it's the pope's school." Applications rose more than 10% during the first admissions cycle following Leo's election in 2025, a trend Donohue has called "the Pope Leo effect." The Rome trip follows a sustainability conference Villanova hosted in the city weeks earlier, where it awarded a cardinal the inaugural Pope Leo XIV Sustainability Medal.
Roughly 6,000 Villanova fans and 1,000 Notre Dame fans are expected to travel for the Halloween weekend event, according to organizers. Pope Leo, who has spoken publicly about his fandom, said in September that "the voice of the people of God will be very strong on the Villanova side." Plans call for a private Vatican audience with the traveling teams and fans on Saturday, health permitting, following the pope's recent cancer diagnosis and surgery, along with a private Mass celebrated by Philadelphia Archbishop Nelson Perez inside St. Peter's Basilica. Villanova has won three NCAA men's basketball titles, in 1985, 2016 and 2018, and three of its alumni played key roles on this year's NBA champion New York Knicks. surfing betting
Beyond athletics, the Rome trip reflects a broader campus shift. The Rev. Bernie Scianna, Villanova's vice president for mission and ministry and a longtime friend of the pope through their shared Augustinian order, said interest in Catholicism on campus has grown noticeably: 24 people joined the Catholic Church at Villanova last year, up from a typical annual figure below 10, with 56 currently preparing to join. Students and faculty traveling to Rome for academic programs - including interns, study-abroad participants and a Villanova panel on sports and spirituality featuring 1971 team member and current faculty member Ed Hastings - say the pope's ties to campus have made him feel more immediate to the student body. Donohue, who overlapped with Leo at Villanova and later chaired its theater department before becoming president, said the university intends to keep supporting its most famous alumnus. "We're very proud of him, and very proud that he's an Augustinian, and very proud that he is leading the church," he said. "Whatever we can do to help him, we're trying to do that."
