Before Villanova bench players Patrick Farrell and Henry Lowe became known for their antics during the 2012-13 season, they were just looking to put some energy into a struggling program.

They went full Game of Thrones – with Ferrell looking into a spyglass and Lowe shooting a bow and arrow. They had WWE-like celebrations. And they found themselves on SportsCenter highlights.

“When it came to games, me and Henry found ourselves in this situation where we didn’t know how to instill our culture to the team yet, but we knew we could bring energy,” Farrell said this week at the Final Four. “That’s something we didn’t lack any day. That’s what we just knew. We kinda got together and said, Let’s get excited about everything that happens in a game and pump our players up as much as possible so they can play as hard as possible.”

As the program improved — the Wildcats won their Final Four game by 44 points and play North Carolina for the national championship tonight — and the players grew from freshmen to sophomores, the celebrations weren’t as frequent.

Coach Jay Wright asked them to instead focus on reinforcing his messages to the team while showing the sort of decorum on the bench that made it clear Villanova teams expected to make big plays.

But those celebrations, coming after a 13-19 season, were perhaps one of the most important contributions they could have made.

“It led to crazy celebrations and at points it got a little carried away,” Farrell said. “But even Coach Wright talks about it sometimes because it was almost like it was what we could give to the program so he respected us because we were giving our all.”

Wright’s not the only one who has viewed attention-grabbing bench celebrations this way. In addition to Villanova’s bench, in the past decade there’s been the antics on Oklahoma’s bench, those of Seton Hall’s Peter Dill, Colby College’s bench players and Monmouth’s bench this season.

Mark Titus, now a writer for ESPN, became a fan favorite during his time at Ohio State for his blog when he was a benchwarmer there. He later wrote a book about his career.

“You have to have some sort of personality just to be the role of what you are on the team – it will kill you unless you can be self-deprecating about it a little bit, have some fun with it,” Titus said. “If you’re approaching that role as, ‘I’m trying to get onto the court and I’m trying to be a player just like everyone else,’ especially on a college level where these guys are walk-ons and paying you their own way to go to school, that’s just way too much time, way too much of a commitment, way too much work to not be able to enjoy it.”

Dill agreed. A walk-on who had little chance of making it to the floor when he became a bench star in 2011-12, he was just looking for a chance to add something.

“You have to know the role you have to play,” he said. “So for me being supportive of all of my teammates was always really important. It was an important role.”

None of it, the players agreed, would be possible if it wasn’t for the internet and the ever-increasing appetite of the 24-7 sports news cycle. Monmouth junior forward Greg Noack, who is one of the team’s now-famous bench players said they heard from people all over the world who were fans of their in-game antics.

The ability to GIF, Instagram and tweet out the moments in real time make it much more likely for them to become part of the game narrative.

“The avenues that we have now to put our personalities out there have been expanded. That’s part of the reason the Club Trillion thing became a thing was it was the right time,” Titus said. “Blogs were becoming a thing, so I made my own blog. I’m sure there were guys way before me if blogs were popular in 1995, I’m sure there would have been a benchwarmer in 1995 that would have done something cool.”

Seth Greenberg, a former coach who is now an analyst at ESPN, thinks it started in the NBA with players playing to the crowd more often and a bigger focus from coaches on everyone finding a role. “I’d much rather have my guys engaged on the bench than just sitting there with their legs crossed,” he said. “But think about eight, nine years ago the whole team, when a guy shot a free throw, they’d pump their foot and cross their legs, lean back.

“So this has been gradually growing and developing but I just think these last few years, now with Monmouth, it’s reached an art form.”

Since their emergence on the scene, Villanova’s bench mob has settled down a bit – their team became more competitive and there wasn’t as much of a need to bring the energy.

Villanova’s Patrick Farrell (20) and Henry Lowe at the Final Four (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

The same with Oklahoma. There hasn’t been another blogger from the bench at Ohio State since Titus. And even Monmouth’s days on top may be coming to an end. When asked if they were working on their moves during the summer, Noack didn’t seem focused on it.

“This offseason’s all about getting in great shape, which is something that we’re going to focus on a lot,” he said. “We’re not going to think too much about (our routines) but I’m sure that things are going to happen around us and we’re going to piece it together and write it down and maybe save it.”

Which could lead to the rise of a new prominent bench. Or maybe some new trend entirely.

“Benches aren’t the only ones who are being crazy,” Titus said. “If you watch real players, when they hit threes, there’s a trend in college basketball where guys hit a three and then they give up a layup because they’re so busy celebrating their three for the next 20 seconds. The arrow shooting thing is the new thing this year. (Indiana guard) Yogi Ferrell does it, the Kentucky guys are doing it. So yeah I think the celebration in general is a huge thing and bench guys take it to the next level because it’s their only way of contributing.

“As long as they’re not on the floor and not actually interfering with the game, I want to see guys run off the bench and run into the stands and start doing laps with fans and stuff,” he added. “Why not? Blur the line between benchwarmer and cheerleader.”

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