PHILADELPHIA — Villanova fans weren’t always going bananas.

Back in November, senior Matthew Devlin and his friends went out for beers after a tough loss to St. Joseph’s. The season was off to a rough start, and they were already worried the year was lost.

“The idea stemmed from that,” Devlin said. “The student section felt like it was lacking a little bit of energy.”

Devlin and his classmates started college with Jay Wright at the helm of the basketball program. During Wright’s final season with the program, the student section at Finneran Pavilion was the place to be.

That hadn’t been the case in the three years since Wright’s departure. So heading into a critical matchup against No. 9 St. John’s on Feb. 12, Devlin and his friends, including fellow senior Aidan Murphy, knew they needed to bring their A-game. Looking for anything to fire up the student section, they decided to buy a group costume, hoping to rebuild that community and energize their fellow fans.

Enter the bananas.

“It wasn’t a unified, collective student section,” Murphy said. “I guess my vision with [the bananas] was, if we get a large group of guys, like my friends, who could buy into a fun idea like this and we all look stupid together, then the crowd and energy can be fed off [it], if that makes sense. It’s an infectious sort of school spirit.”

Murphy is a member of the Sigma Epsilon fraternity, and through a massive group chat of friends across a number of fraternities at Villanova, around 50 seniors purchased banana costumes to wear to the St. John’s game. It was the most cost-effective of the potential costume options — especially since Murphy had already worn it for Halloween that fall — and cost each person around $20.

The bananas flooded the lower level of the student section at Finneran, creating a bright yellow block on the baseline in view of the St. John’s players. And their impact was quickly felt.

A Kyle Neptune technical foul put St. John’s at the line to shoot two free throws late in the first half.

“The St. John’s player that was shooting the free throws, he hit the first one, but then he looked over at us bananas and said something, I don’t really know what, but it seemed like he was frustrated with us, and that riled us up to get in his head,” Murphy said.

“He ended up missing the second technical free throw. I don’t want to say it was because we were all riled up and chirping him and stuff, but we ended up winning the game by two points. Being able to say — maybe we had an impact, maybe we didn’t. I’d like to think we did, but being able to say that we impacted the game by a point was pretty special.”

Originally, Devlin said the group was only planning to wear the costumes to that one game. But the bananas were a massive hit with the Villanova fan base. People raised money for buses to send the bananas to the Wells Fargo Center for the game vs. No. 16 Marquette and for additional banana costumes, so an even larger group headed down to the game.

The bananas also attracted the attention of Jake Whitten, Villanova’s associate athletic director for marketing and promotion. Whitten reached out to the bananas, and for the Feb. 21 game, Whitten and Villanova rallied a group of sponsors for a T-shirt giveaway and debuted a new “Let’s Get Bananas” hype video on the video board.

Whitten wanted to make sure the bananas were still taking the lead. Villanova placed them front-and-center in the student section but wanted to make sure not to take away from the organic trend.

“Let’s come up with ideas that we can help add to this theme, this craze, but let’s not overdo it,” Whitten said. “Let’s not scare them away. Let’s not make it where it’s not fun, or engaging, or anything like that. We were walking that fine line the whole time. What was great is we just had great communication with the group the whole time. Going into it, we wanted to thank them, first, for all they did around the St. John’s game, and let them know how appreciative we were of them.”

The Wildcats pulled off another upset against Marquette, 81-66, to keep their NCAA Tournament hopes alive. Even the players acknowledged the environment the bananas were creating.

“It was bananas,” Jhamir Brickus said postgame. “It was an awesome experience to have them out there supporting us and cheering for the whole 40 minutes.”

Murphy and the original bananas don’t think they’ll be able to make the Big East Tournament, but hope is not lost.

The group was on spring break during Villanova’s final home game against Butler, and a smattering of fans, including alumni and kids, picked up the torch for them, wearing their own banana costumes for the Wildcats’ 80-70 win over Butler.

For Murphy, whose goal was always to unite the Villanova fan base, the growth of the banana movement is “a core memory” from his time at Villanova.

“There was a viral Twitter post about a mom who her kids dressed up as bananas with a V on it,” Miller said. “It was really cool to see it go beyond just the group chat that was involved with it. It was just pretty cool to see how big it got.”

If the Wildcats can make a run in the Big East Tournament — their first game is Wednesday night against Seton Hall (9 p.m. ET, Peacock) — the movement could continue to grow.

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