KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jay Wright saw the direction college basketball was headed four years ago, when the transfer portal began to reshape the way teams were constructed, and abruptly retired after leading Villanova to a pair of national championships.
Some would argue the chaos has only gotten worse.
Name, image and likeness payments, revenue sharing, the recent expansion of the NCAA Tournament to 76 teams and a plethora of court cases challenging eligibility rules have left some coaches wondering what will come next.
It doesn't make Wright, who was inducted into the National Collegiate Hall of Fame on Thursday, wish he'd stuck around.
“In my wildest dreams, even though I saw what was coming, I could have never anticipated it would get to the levels it is financially right now, and the movement in the transfer portal. I don't think I could have ever imagined it is what it is now,” Wright told The Associated Press. “It's a really unique time, and I hope we can find a way to allow these players to still be compensated, and share in the revenue, but keep those connections to education and to our universities.”
Wright's affinity for the college atmosphere, and Villanova in particular, is one reason why the 61-year-old left a stint in broadcasting after his 2022 retirement to return to the school as a special assistant to the president, the Rev. Peter M. Donohue.
There, he's seen firsthand how much stress Wildcats coach Kevin Willard is under to build — and pay for — his roster each season.
“I hope we can work something out with the transfer portal, work something out with revenue sharing, where we can still revenue share with these guys but these guys stay in school, get their degrees,” Wright said. "It's a great opportunity to stay in school for four years, get paid for four years, and get your education — that's the best of all worlds. I hope we can get to that point.
“I don't have the answers right now,” Wright added, “but I hope we get to that point.”
In the meantime, Wright was enjoying a celebration of the game Thursday alongside his fellow Hall of Fame inductees: longtime Kansas and Oral Roberts coach Ted Owens; Tubby Smith, who took five schools to the NCAA Tournament and won a national title at Kentucky; BYU standout and current Utah Jazz chief executive Danny Ainge; Glen Rice, who led Michigan to the 1989 national title; and the late Walt Hazzard, who helped deliver John Wooden his first championship at UCLA.
None stepped away in their prime the way Wright did at Villanova. Yet when asked whether he would still be on the sideline if college basketball was the same as it was in 2000, when Wright was coaching at Hofstra, he replied: “I don't think so.”
“I felt like for me, I felt like everyone has their time,” Wright said. “It was my time to be responsible for the Villanova program, and I did it. I gave everything I had. I always asked our players, ‘You have to be 100 percent in. If you’re not 100 percent in, you're against us.' I didn't feel like I had that 100 percent, and I couldn't ask them to give 100 percent if I didn't.”
His last decade at Villanova was remarkable not only for the championships it produced by the players Wright sent to the NBA. Three of them — Jalen Brunson, Josh Hart and Mikael Bridges — led the New York Knicks to the title this past season.
“I get goosebumps thinking about how good his teams were that last number of years,” said broadcaster Fran Fraschilla, the master of ceremonies for the Hall of Fame induction. “That 2018 Final Four team, they just blew me away. It was incredible to watch.”
There was something incredible in the careers of each of the inductees.
The 97-year-old Owens led the Jayhawks to a pair of Final Fours during his run at Kansas from 1964-83, while the 75-year-old Smith led Tulsa, Georgia, Minnesota, Kentucky and Texas Tech to the NCAA Tournament.
Hazzard was a two-time All-American at UCLA before a long pro career. Ainge's college career might best be remembered for his winning layup against Notre Dame in 1981, which sent BYU to the Elite Eight. And Rice shattered the NCAA tourney scoring record in 1989, when he led a team coached by Steve Fisher to an overtime win over Seton Hall in the championship game.
“To be on this stage with so many wonderful people, it brings back cherished moments,” Smith said, smiling. “I see a lot of folks whose paths crossed at some point. I've been a few places. Most of the time people say, ‘Tubby, why did you coach so many places?’ I couldn't keep a job. That's probably what it was.”
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