For the first time in the NCAA tournament, perhaps all season, Jay Wright looked unprepared.
Moments earlier, Villanova had capped off its second national championship in a three-year stretch with a 17-point title game romp over Michigan that showcased the breathtaking depth of talent Wright had assembled. Even with the national player of the year in Jalen Brunson and a likely lottery pick in Mikal Bridges, the story of the night was sixth man Donte DiVincenzo, who paired a 5-for-7 shooting performance from the three-point line with a handful of stunningly athletic plays on both ends of the court that turned him into an instant sensation both on social media and among NBA front office types.
But when asked at his news conference if DiVincenzo had done enough on that stage to put him in the NBA draft mix, Wright reacted as if the thought had never before crossed his mind that DiVincenzo might not be back for his redshirt junior year.
“I'm a college coach,” Wright said. “Sometimes it amazes me, I don't have a great feel for how they make decisions on drafting. I probably would make a horrible GM. So I don't know. But we'll find out. We'll definitely look into it.”
As it turned out, DiVincenzo’s decision to turn pro was easier than anyone anticipated, just as it was for Brunson, Bridges and ultimately big man Omari Spellman, who officially declared for the draft before the deadline to withdraw on Wednesday.
And just like that, a Villanova machine that would have probably been favored to win it all again had even two of those players returned is basically starting over with unfamiliar faces and unproven pieces.
Certainly nobody is going to cry for Wright, who seemed to be rather at peace last weekend when he was caught on camera at a Philadelphia Phillies game cuddling up to his golden retriever, bothered only by the amount of hair that was being shed on his t-shirt.
But this reset on the Villanova roster does present a bit of a fork in the road for Wright because even if it’s obvious right now that he has the top college basketball program in the country, there are two paths he could take from here.
The first possibility is that Villanova, in essence, becomes the next Duke as college basketball’s East Coast, private school standard-bearer, which would require more Final Four runs and longevity. Though there’s always been chatter about NBA teams’ interest in Wright, he’s made it fairly clear that it would take something unforeseen to get him out of Villanova, where he can enjoy total control and institutional support, and out of Philadelphia, his hometown. Plus, at 56, Wright is undeniably set up to outlast the greying set of legends like Jim Boeheim (73), Mike Krzyzewski (71), Roy Williams (67), who can only carry the sport of college basketball for so long.
The second possibility, though, is that Villanova just can’t keep doing what they’ve been doing, which is developing star players at a far greater rate than their recruiting has suggested. That’s not to say Villanova doesn’t recruit good players. By every measure, they do, along with a true blue-chip guy every now and then. But for the most part, Wright has been operating in sort of a gray area of players who are just below the one-and-done talent level but are becoming very good as a result of being in college for two or three years.
Among the six players who made up the bulk of Villanova’s rotation in 2018, only Brunson was a key factor in the 2016 championship run while Phil Booth and Bridges came off the bench and DiVincenzo redshirted after an injury. In essence, Wright won his two championships with two totally different teams.
So now the roster turns over again with two starters returning (Booth and forward Eric Paschall), along with a couple freshmen who played bit roles last season, an incoming five-star point guard in Jahvon Quinerly and a graduate transfer from Albany in Joe Cremo. Even as it stands now – and, who knows, they may try to add another transfer before it’s all said and done – Villanova will be in the top 10 or 15 of most preseason polls, owed both to the benefit of the doubt Wright now gets and for competing in a Big East that may not be quite as stout as last season.
But meeting those new expectations, year after year no matter how many guys he loses unexpectedly, will be challenge of the new reality Wright now faces. Maybe this is the time Villanova comes back to the pack. But if Wright can keep this run going with a third roster iteration in four years, it will no longer be an anomaly but rather a new norm with no end in sight.
IMAGES FROM THE NCAA TOURNAMENT NATIONAL TITLE GAME
