Thank You, Jay Wright

The news broke just before Game 3 of the Sixers and Raptors series. TMZ even shared the news. Villanova Men’s Head Basketball Coach, Jay Wright, announced his retirement from coaching.

I have only one thing to say. Thank you, Jay Wright. Thank you for retiring. Now, I can go back to my regularly scheduled disliking of pretty much everything about Villanova.

Jay Wright made it excruciatingly difficult to hate on Nova hoops because he’s such a good coach and better dude. As a life-long Cuse fan, Nova was always an arch-enemy along with Georgetown. Rollie Massimino’s boringly slow and deliberate offense was unbearable to watch as a young hoopster. I got sucked into the undisciplined, up-and-down, alley-oop-filled act of Syracuse basketball, which felt like it was on television every weekend, and happened to wear one of my favorite colors—orange.

Going to the Cuse/Nova games only fueled my anti-Nova feelings. Their fans in attendance felt more like a North Jersey/New York crowd in khakis and loafers on weekends, like they were at a business conference, and they were smug. I will say that I’ve met a handful of normal Nova fans, but by and large they aren’t a likable bunch.

All was fine until Jay Wright showed up and started building a program that was hard to hate because you had to respect it so much. But all that’s over. I’m free, baby. Free to get back to the old normal. Maybe Syracuse can actually get good again, as well. A guy can hope.

Kudos to Jay Wright, an amazing basketball mind and coach. I can’t thank him enough for leaving Villanova. Get him on the Sixers sideline with an offer he can’t refuse, such as 5% ownership.