Jay Wright Created a New Blueprint for College Basketball Success at Villanova
Fresh off his fourth career Final Four appearance, Jay Wright dropped a bombshell on NCAA men's basketball. He was one of the few coaches capable of taking the torch from Coach K as the reigning king of college hoops, but instead decided to join the former Duke coach in retirement. Nobody saw it coming, and that's exactly the way the former Villanova coach wanted it. A farewell tour filled with accolades and admiration would have stood in stark contrast to the program he worked diligently to re-build over the last 20 years on the Main Line. At a university where football is an afterthought, Wright never had the luxuries that most other top-tier basketball programs enjoy by riding the coattails of gridiron success. In order to compete with schools like Duke, North Carolina, Michigan, and Kansas, he was going to need to get creative. Simply poaching a few five-star recruits each year was not an option. It didn't happen overnight, but since 2009 Villanova basketball has been ...