BOSTON – Reaching the Final Four is just about the pinnacle of success for a college basketball coach. About the only thing better is winning the national championship, obviously. But getting to the Final Four for the first time tends to change perceptions and sometimes lives. For a great example of the former, look at Jim Calhoun and Gary Williams when they got there for the first time. For a great example of the latter, look at Jim Larranaga.
Then there’s Jay Wright. What does this mean for him?
Wright has long been known for a lot of things besides coaching. He’s long been known for being well-dressed, a subject that many are never lacking for jokes about with him. That was even the case when one writer mentioned whether or not the Final Four cap matched his suit on Saturday night, which drew a smile from him and a lot of laughs among other media that were present. He’s been known for his recruiting since he was at Hofstra. And he’s long been known as a charismatic guy.
Ask coaches about Jay Wright, and privately you’ll never hear a bad thing about him. In what is very much a people business, he’s a people person and knows how to work a room with the best of them. That reputation is legitimate; anyone in the media who has dealt with him knows it well. It’s served him well in recruiting, and the results bear that out.
Now, Wright should be known as much for his coaching as anything else. As good a job as he does recruiting, this Villanova team isn’t as talented as the one he had three years ago that lost to eventual national champion Florida in the Elite 8. It’s not as experienced, although it’s pretty close. This team doesn’t have a great deal of size and had to navigate through the Big East in arguably the conference’s best year ever.
This team also has a couple of players who weren’t much ballyhooed coming out of high school among its best players. Actually, a lot of the roster is that way, more so than for many Final Four teams, but players like Dante Cunningham and Dwayne Anderson stand out in that respect. Neither player came in ready to start on day one; Anderson did a prep year and was still a bit player at first. He steadily improved all of his numbers and was a major component to this season’s team. Cunningham’s development from a reserve who gave them an inside presence as a freshman to the team’s best player this year speaks for itself.
Wright was asked if this is life-changing for him. Throughout the post-game, as much as he was enjoying the result, he thought a great deal of what this means to others. He said earlier that getting to the Final Four isn’t a goal of his, which he said he got a little grief for. As much as he loves the job and was ecstatic about winning on Saturday, he has a sense of perspective. He’s blessed to be in this place, and he has things that are more important to him, like his family. All he could think of were other people enjoying this more than he was.
“What you can do for other people is the greatest,” Wright said. “And that’s what I feel great about. They’re so happy. They’re happier than me, way happier than me.”
He was imagining the reaction of the campus to this as well as the many who appreciate college basketball in Philadelphia, the best big city in the country for college basketball.
“I am thrilled for our people. I bet our campus is going crazy,” said Wright. “I know how much these kids love this, how much they support us. I wish I could just sit up on a blimp and watch them all and stay out of it. I don’t really need to celebrate, I’m so tired. I’d just like to have a glass of wine and watch them all enjoy it.”
Wright has also had a life-changing event, let’s not forget. It was only a little over four years ago that the team nearly died when an important instrument in their chartered plane malfunctioned as they were about to fly home after an emotional road win. The entire team back then got a perspective check on life, including the coach, who a few months later got a chance to recharge while coaching Team USA in the World University Games in Turkey.
The reporter who asked Wright if this would be life-changing might have been trying to go down the road another one did when mentioning that this makes him the hottest coach in the country. But Wright isn’t going to leave Villanova, no matter how much his name is mentioned for other jobs. When you think of people who have “the life”, Jay Wright should be right around the top of that list. He’s a Philadelphia guy coaching a team in Philadelphia. A well-chronicled story is that he took his wife to a Big 5 game for their first date; now he’s coaching at a school that has dominated the Big 5 of late. He’s coaching in the best conference in the country this year.
He had all of that before Saturday night. Now, he’s off to his first Final Four. Goal or not, that’s a pretty good life he has. It’s no wonder he feels blessed to be where he is.
