In a shocking decision that will reverberate around college sports, longtime Villanova men’s basketball coach Jay Wright, 60, has decided to retire after 21 years of leading the Wildcats, the coach announced Wednesday evening. Wright, who led Villanova to a pair of national championships, called an impromptu meeting with his team to share the news of his retirement.
During that meeting, Wright shared that Fordham coach Kyle Neptune will replace him in leading the Villanova program, sources told CBS Sports. Neptune was an assistant under Wright from 2013-21.
“Over the past 21 years, I’ve had the opportunity to live out a professional dream of as the head coach at Villanova. Patty and I have been blessed to work with incredible, gifted young men who allowed us to coach them and brought us unmatched joy,” Wright said in a statement on Twitter. “We cannot overstate the gratitude to the players, coaches, and administrators who have been with us on this path. It has been an honor and a privilege to work at Villanova, especially under Father Peter and Mark Jackson”
Wright, already a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame, began seriously mulling his retirement throughout this past season, a source said. He moved closer to his decision in March. In recent weeks, Villanova power brokers had discussions with Wright see if the coach would change his mind.
Fresh off his fourth Final Four appearance, Wright is deciding to walk away from the grind of college basketball. Privately, he has shared frustrations with some of the significant changes with the way the sport operates. It’s not that Wright is against the idea of the transfer portal or name, image and likeness rules, but rather all that comes with those things, the way recruiting is in this era, and what it means to be a power-conference coach who’s expected to perform at the highest of levels on an annual basis. He’s…
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