Memphis Grizzlies: 5 College Coaches To Interview For Head Coaching Job
By Chris Kern
Jay Wright
Jay Wright has had a lot of success during his college career most notably at Villanova, but he started off his head coaching career at Hofstra in the late 1990s. His first season at Villanova was in 2001-02 and he has led them to a lot of success since then.
His overall career record is 570-260 including his 448-175 record at Villanova. He has helped build this program back up and they have become one of the truly elite programs in college basketball. They had a down year in 2018-19, but the five years prior they had a combined 21 losses.
Villanova won championships in both the 2015-16 and 2017-18 season and was the number one overall seed during the 2017 NCAA Tournament in between those two seasons. Those teams aren’t built with top recruits who leave after one year either, they do it with guys who stay for multiple seasons.
He has helped develop guys into NBA players who have had long successful careers. Some of the more recent guys he coached include Ryan Arcidiacono, Josh Hart, and Jalen Brunson. The majority of these guys were college stars who become successful backup guards at the next level.
He has also helped develop some of the lesser known players into draft picks by giving them an opportunity to shine during the NCAA Tournament. Donte DiVincenzo and Omari Spellman both were selected in the first round of the 2018 NBA Draft primarily because they were dominant in just a few NCAA Tournament games.
All of these players have been a part of Jay Wright’s system at Villanova and they have benefited from it in a big way. They have bought in and played at a very high level. A lot of these guys are top-100 recruits, but they typically haven’t been the flashy guys who are talked about a lot.
Player development should be a big part of the Grizzlies search and that’s what Wright and so many of these college coaches bring. Wright has done a very good job developing guards which could be beneficial as they continue the development of guys such as Jevon Carter and Dillon Brooks.
The priority has to be Jaren Jackson Jr. though. He is this team’s franchise superstar to build around and they need a coach who can help him become the best possible player he can. With Jay Wright’s track record he is at the very least deserving of an interview. It should be noted though that it’s very unlikely he would even consider this though which will be the case with all of these coaches.