Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Jay Wright’s Keys to College Basketball Success



Villanova is going back to the Final Four for the second time in three years. The Wildcats have been on quite a run recently, really since Jay Wright took over the program in 2001. People remember the 2005-06 team fondly, with Kyle Lowry, Randy Foye, and Allan Ray, though they didn’t even make the Final Four. Wright’s teams have ascended to a higher level after the Big East Conference shake-up in 2013. In the past five NCAA Tournament's, Villanova has three #1-seeds and two #2-seeds, highlighted by their National Championship in 2016. Over this past decade, Villanova has become a national powerhouse in college basketball along with the likes of North Carolina, Kentucky, Duke, Kansas, UConn, and Florida, despite the fact they are a private university, much smaller than all those other schools.

So how did Jay Wright do it? What are his keys to success?

1. Chemistry
All of Jay Wright’s team’s have a family atmosphere, something he learned from Rollie Massimino. I remember during my four years attending school at Villanova, whenever I’d see basketball players on campus, they were never alone. There were always at least two of them together, usually more. They’d all eat together in the dining halls and go to other school events as a team. They seemed to be each other’s best friends. You can see that campus camaraderie translate to chemistry on the court. There’s never any selfish play or stat-chasing. Jay Wright seems to focus on chemistry when recruiting, finding players who will buy into the family atmosphere of the team. Those who don’t buy in probably end up transferring to another school.

2. Effort
Jay Wright’s teams always play hard on defense. One example, that I’ve seen so many Nova players do over the years is, if they turn over the ball on offense, they sprint back down the court and dive to try to steal it from behind. So much of defense comes down to effort. You also see Nova players diving for loose balls and jumping into the stands to save it from going out of bounds. The effort is probably closely related to the chemistry; it’s hard to have one without the other.

3. Free Throw Shooting
Jay Wright’s teams are always good at free-throw shooting, especially his big men, who are typically poor free throw shooters (hack-a-Shaq). This must be another thing that Jay focuses on in recruiting, but also at practice. There have been several players who came in as poor shooters as freshmen but continually improved each year, such as Daniel Ochefu (48% as a freshman; 68% as a senior). Free throw shooting is so important, especially late in close games when it can be the difference between winning and losing.

4. 3-Point Shooting
Related to the free throw shooting, perhaps, but Jay Wright’s teams are always good at shooting threes. He almost always has at least four shooters on the floor at all times. He was ahead of the curve on this, doing it back in 2005. Now, with the advanced stats revolution in the NBA, you see everybody doing this. The math isn’t complicated: 3-pointers are worth more than 2-pointers. In the past, Jay Wright would sometimes play four-guard lineups to get more shooters on the floor, which, unfortunately, had negative effects on the defensive end. But this year, he has big men (Omari Spellman, Eric Paschall, Mikal Bridges) that can defend and rebound but also shoot the three. That’s the holy grail in basketball these days: big men who can shoot 3’s and defend.

5. 4-Star Recruits
Jay Wright has never had a one-and-done player during his tenure at Villanova. Jay doesn’t tend to sign the top tier 5-star NBA lottery talent recruits like John Calipari at Kentucky. Mikal Bridges might be a lottery pick this year, but he’d be Jay Wright’s first since Randy Foye. Kentucky, by contrast, has had 16 NBA lottery picks over the past 8 years, including all-star talent like DeMarcus Cousins, John Wall, Anthony Davis, Karl-Anthony Towns, and Devin Booker. Yet despite their disparity in talent, Kentucky has won the same number of championships during that span as Villanova (one). Anthony Davis was such an extraordinary talent that he helped his team cruise to a title as a freshman. But Davis is an exception to the rule. Generally, experience matters. If Cousins and Wall stayed together another year, they probably would have won a title—the same with Towns and Booker. But that’s the problem with the top tier players. It makes financial sense for them to leave after one year and join the NBA.

That’s where Jay Wright gets his advantage. By recruiting fringe NBA talent (Dante Cunningham, Josh Hart, Ryan Arcidiacono, Daniel Ochefu, Darrun Hilliard) instead of the one-and-done lottery talent, he can guarantee they will stay in school for at least 3 or 4 years. And those 3-4 years make a huge difference when you’re talking about 18 to 22-year-old kids. Experience matters. The experience Jalen Brunson and Mikal Bridges gained as Freshmen on the 2016 championship team is helping them enormously now. They’ve been there and done that. They know what they need to do to win it all. This also factors into team chemistry. It’s tough to build chemistry with one-and-done players. Of course, every team would like to have a once in a generation talent like Anthony Davis, but Jay Wright has found another route to success by focusing on the 2nd tier of recruits. He finds the best talent from the pool of players who will likely stay in school for four years. Ultimately, a team full of 4-star recruit juniors and seniors will probably have better results in the NCAA Tournament than a team of 5-star recruit freshmen. 

Having veteran talent is only one part of the equation, however. What makes Jay Wright’s tenure special is the continued success. Villanova has been a top-two seed for five straight years and has only missed the NCAA Tournament once in the past nineteen years (2012). A run like that is almost unheard of. How do you remain elite despite losing your best players every year? The key is to always be restocking the team, maintaining a balance of upperclassmen and underclassmen. Brunson and Bridges were role players on the 2016 team, but now they’re the leaders in 2018. And the young players on this team (Spellman and Donte DiVincenzo) will be the leaders next year and beyond, teaching the next group of talent how to play "Villanova Basketball." That’s how you maintain perennial contenders despite losing great players. You are always developing the next generation to take over. You never want all freshmen or all upperclassmen, but a balance of both.

The key to success in college basketball, which Jay Wright seems to have found out, is to recruit, not the A+ talent, but the B’s. And of course, make sure they are team-oriented, play hard on defense, and can shoot. 


Oh, plus look like George Clooney and wear stylish suits. That helps, too.