VILLANOVA, Pa. ââ'¬" A new season for the Villanova Wildcats gets underway on Friday night at the Pavilion against Fairleigh Dickinson and brings with it a slight twist: for the first time in recent memory, a regular season basketball game falls on Homecoming Weekend on campus.

"Opening night is always a thrill and it's cool that it's part of Homecoming Weekend this year," stated Villanova head coach Jay Wright, who begins his 15th season at the helm on Friday night.

"I think everybody is excited about this team and this season. The players are always excited to play that first game and so are the coaches."

Villanova, ranked No. 11 in the Associated Press preseason poll, has won 13 of its last 14 games on opening night, with 10 of those games being held in the Pavilion. The Wildcats opened the 2014-15 campaign with a 77-66 win over Lehigh at the PPL Center in a game that was close until the final five minutes.

"That (success) probably has a lot to do with us playing most of those at the Pavilion," Wright noted. "It's not something we talk about as a team. We're looking at this like this is the first chance for us to go play against (an opponent) and play the best we can. We're going to really judge ourselves on how close we are to playing our best."

Fairleigh Dickinson brings a youthful roster to the Pavilion that includes nine freshmen and sophomores. The Knights were 8-21 overall in 2014-15 but are excited about the young nucleus put together by third year head coach Greg Herenda and his staff.

"It's a young team that were all recruited by a new coach in Greg Herenda who has his system in place," said Wright. "The sophomores are guys that were in the system last year and have played in it for a year. They're dangerous."

One of the young Knights has a Villanova connection. Sophomore guard Darian Anderson, a 6-1 guard who averaged 11.4 ppg as a rookie, is the younger brother of former Wildcats' captain Dwayne Anderson. Dwayne Anderson helped lead the 2009 Villanova squad to the NCAA Final Four and is now an assistant coach at Penn State University under former VU associate head coach Patrick Chambers.

"He's tough and he's not going to be intimidated coming in here," noted Wright. "They've got guards who can control the tempo of the game. They can handle it and shoot it. We're expecting a tough game."

As he evaluated the film of last Sunday's 80-45 exhibition win over Pace Wright saw some things he liked and some areas that could use some work.

"I don't like how we started the game," stated Wright. "We didn't start well in our scrimmage either but (Pace) did ââ'¬" we've got to give them credit.

"I did like how we adjusted defensively. Daniel Ochefu did a really good job (because) they were trying to pull him away from the basket. I liked our young guys off the bench.

"I felt good about it. We'll get a test here Friday night and we'll see how much more we have to improve."

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