VILLANOVA, Pa. — Maddy Siegrist walks into the Villanova basketball offices toting a paper plate heaped with a shell-less taco concoction. She politely digs into her mobile dinner in between answering questions for an interview. Forty minutes later, her meal eaten if not digested, she greets a family outside the practice court. In December, they’d purchased a Siegrist jersey for their daughter for Christmas — or so they thought. Turns out the whole thing was a scam. No jersey ever materialized. A friend of a friend reached out to the athletic department to see if they could secure a real jersey; Villanova did them one better, supplying the shirt and the woman who wears it for a little meet and greet.
The next day, Siegrist heads to Connecticut for the Big East tournament, where in the span of three days, she drops 85 points and leads the Wildcats to the Big East tournament final. After each game, with a security guard by her side to make sure she doesn’t want a break (she never does), she signs autographs and poses for pictures with a bevy of fans, most of whom are pint-sized future hoopsters who consider Siegrist their jump-shooting Taylor Swift.
This is the life of Maddy Siegrist, Villanova’s SuperNova, who has Jimmer-ed her way into her sport’s headlines,…
