Villanova landed its first commitment of the 2025 cycle on Wednesday, when legacy recruit Dante Allen chose the Wildcats over both Georgia and Tennessee. Allen, who plays his high school basketball for Florida’s Montverde Academy, accrued a long list of scholarship offers before choosing to follow the footsteps of his father, Malik Allen, to ‘Nova.
Below, Rivals national analyst Rob Cassidy examines what the Wildcats are getting in Allen as well as what it means for the big picture of Villanova basketball.
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WHAT VILLANOVA IS GETTING
The son of former Villanova Wildcat standout and current Miami Heat assistant coach Malik Allen, Dante Allen possesses some of the best end-to-end speed in the 2025 class.
The 6-foot-3 guard is a scorer first and foremost and is at his best in transition, where he’s comfortable leading the break and puts enormous pressure on defenders with an attacking disposition that is aided by incredible quickness with the ball in his hand. It’s because of this that Allen finds himself at the free-throw line quite often. He also had a knack for finishing difficult layups at the rim. Allen is hot and cold as a long-range shooter, but he’s incredibly effective from deep on his best days.
Defensively, he lacks the size to be a truly elite and versatile option, but his motor and athleticism allow him to be a nuisance in passing lanes on the perimeter and often result in run-throughs.
Ideally, he’ll continue to improve as a shot-creator in the half court and become more consistent when letting it fly from deep, but the foundation of a winning skill set is present in him in spades.
Allen projects as a four-year player that could become a full-fledged star in his later college years.
WHAT IT MEANS FOR THE WILDCATS
Things have not gotten off to a great start for Kyle Neptune since taking the reins of the program from legendary head coach Jay Wright back in April of 2022. Since that time, the program has amassed a 35-33 record and has stumbled a bit on the recruiting trail as well. That context is what made landing Allen, a top-100 legacy prospect, so vital. Letting Allen walk away to another program would have almost certainly caused a fan-base-relations hit for a coaching staff in need of any win it can muster.
Villanova doesn’t have many other high-profile targets in the 2025 class, and Allen felt like the program’s one chance at landing a splashy commitment. For that reason, it’s a recruiting victory that Neptune and his staff should celebrate as pivotal.
