The Rev. Rob Hagan immediately thought of the parable of the barren fig tree. As the chaplain for the Villanova men’s basketball team, he had just been on the winning end of a Big East tournament quarterfinal game, feeling the highs of seeing the Wildcats advance to the next round. After his team departed the news conference room, Hagan stayed behind to listen to Marquette, the team Villanova had just defeated.

There was a somber tone. Marquette was thinking about the disappointment of a 13-19 season; Hagan was thinking about the man who prevented the fig tree from being cut down because it had not borne fruit immediately.

The parable is a March favorite.

“They certainly didn’t get all the results they were looking for this year,” Hagan said later. “But there’s a lot of value besides wins and losses. How do we learn? What are we going to do differently? How will we grow? That’s why I like that story. It shows that you don’t just dismiss everything else because you didn’t get the win.”

College basketball’s most pressure-packed month can bring up a wide range of results and emotions: success, failure, pain, doubt, finality. Mistakes are magnified. Careers end without warning. For all of those reasons, Hagan’s place at the final seat of Villanova’s bench is an important one. He is a counselor for the good times and the bad. And Hagan is not the only one in such a position.