Former Villanova men's basketball coach Jay Wright joined Sports Illustrated to discuss the impact of Caitlin Clark, how close he was to coaching in the NBA, and his thoughts on the NCAA Tournament.
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00:00 I'm Robin Lumber, joined now by former Villanova coach Jay Wright, who has partnered with Great
00:04 Clips on a March Madness rights and wrongs sweepstake.
00:09 Somebody's going to get a trip to the 2025 men's or women's Final Four as a result of
00:14 this and definitely want to get into that, coach.
00:16 Now when you're talking about the right approach going into March Madness, what would be your
00:20 advice for, you know, let's say your former team Villanova, who is close to the bubble
00:25 right now?
00:26 Well, for those teams right now, you've got to focus on one game at a time.
00:35 You cannot get caught up in trying to figure out, and everyone around you is saying to
00:41 you if St. John's wins this game and if Seton Hall loses that game, it's coming at you from
00:48 everywhere.
00:49 And it's a cool thing, right?
00:50 Because that's what makes everyone love March Madness.
00:52 Because March Madness isn't just the NCAA tournament, it's this time, it's the time
00:58 of year when teams are preparing to try to get to the tournament, right?
01:02 So you've got to stay focused on your next game.
01:05 It's easy to say, Robin, but it's really hard to do.
01:10 You mentioned St. John's.
01:11 How would you assess the job that Rick Pitino has done there?
01:15 There's been a lot of headlines around that, obviously.
01:18 Amazing job.
01:20 You know, I come from the era before, Transfer Portal was just getting going when I started.
01:26 And we really benefited from having guys in our program three and four years.
01:33 Probably no one benefited more than we did because we had guys that stayed.
01:36 We didn't bring in many transfers, hardly any.
01:39 And we didn't lose any guys.
01:42 To see Rick bring all these guys in, in one year, none of them having been together, and
01:50 hardly any of them even have been at St. John's, and put this team together, have them playing
01:54 at the level they are, it's why he's a Hall of Fame coach.
01:58 It's why he's one of the greatest of all time.
02:00 It's impressive.
02:01 Whether they make the tournament or not, it's really impressive.
02:06 Speaking of impressive, we were talking before we started, and you said it's an honor whenever
02:09 your former players call you coach, but you've got a lot of former players in a high-profile
02:14 situation in New York right now.
02:16 Obviously a bunch of former Villanova players on the Knicks, Mikael Bridges on the Nets.
02:21 When you look back historically, where do you think that Villanova team should rank
02:26 in the annals of history?
02:29 It's really funny because I think about this when I think about this UConn team right now.
02:36 Jalen Brunson and Mikael Bridges and Josh Hart, they were on the '16 team, and they
02:45 argue, but Ryan Archidiakono and Daniel Chaffee O'Connor were the leaders on that team.
02:52 But those guys were also on the '18 National Championship team, and they argue with each
02:57 other who's the better team.
02:59 When I'm saying like, "Yo, you were on both teams.
03:03 How could you do that?"
03:05 But Jalen Brunson, the younger guys will say the '18 team was better because they weren't
03:11 the leaders on that team.
03:13 And it's pretty cool to have, you got Kyle Lowry now playing for the '76ers too, which
03:18 it keeps everybody close.
03:20 He'll argue that his Final Eight team was better than them.
03:22 They just happened to run into Florida.
03:23 So they all have an ego about their own teams.
03:27 Brooklyn Nets are looking for a coach this summer.
03:30 I saw you say you're done with coaching, but did you or have you ever thought about what
03:36 it would have been like in the NBA?
03:39 I definitely did.
03:40 There were a couple times during my career, and probably the time I came closest to, when
03:48 Ed Stefanski, who was a good friend of mine, is now with the Pistons as an advisor, but
03:54 he was the president and general manager of the '76ers.
03:58 He's my neighbor, friend.
04:00 And we had just come off, I think, a Sweet 16 or Final Eight run.
04:03 I was thinking at the time, "Have we done everything we can do at Villanova?
04:08 Is it someone else's turn?"
04:10 So I did think about it.
04:12 And then there were other times when friends...
04:15 So that was the closest, but there were other times towards the end where friends would
04:21 call that were general managers or presidents.
04:26 And I would think about it for a little bit, but I was always thinking, "If I go to the
04:30 NBA, I'm probably going to get fired.
04:33 So if I got fired, what would I want to do?
04:34 Well, I'd probably want to come back and coach Villanova."
04:37 But you can't do that.
04:38 Once you give it up, you can't come back and take it back.
04:41 So I never really wanted to leave Villanova.
04:45 Now the Great Clips campaign is men's or women's Final Four, and obviously, Kaitlin Clark has
04:51 put the women in another stratosphere, in a sense.
04:54 I saw some of the games are outrating the men's games.
04:59 What would you say, how would you describe her impact on the sport?
05:04 I think in any sport, when you recognize a special talent, and then that special talent
05:13 has some charisma and a connection, it takes it to another level.
05:20 You think of Michael Jordan and LeBron James.
05:25 I grew up watching Pete Maravich, and as great a player as he was, he had the floppy hair
05:31 and the floppy...
05:32 He had a look, he had a thing about him.
05:33 And I think Kaitlin's got that game.
05:36 I think she's got that connection with the fans.
05:39 She's got some juice to her game.
05:41 She's not just a scorer.
05:43 She's a great passer.
05:45 She's a winner.
05:46 She hits clutch shots.
05:48 I think she's really kind of mesmerized basketball people.
05:53 I've heard more men that I know don't watch men's college basketball, because they don't
06:00 even ask me about it.
06:02 But they'll ask me about Kaitlin Clark, and they watched her game when she broke the record.
06:07 So I think it's great for basketball in general, obviously great for women's basketball.
06:12 Tell us, Coach, about what you're doing with the rights and wrongs sweepstakes, along with
06:16 great clips.
06:17 Well, it's pretty cool, because number one, I got a good haircut.
06:21 I hope it looks good.
06:22 I like it.
06:23 I get great haircuts from great clips.
06:25 But what we're doing is we're trying to educate people that, hey, there's a right and wrong
06:29 way to prepare for the tournament.
06:31 The first thing you got to do is you got to get cleaned up.
06:34 You got to get a great haircut at great clips, and you got to be fresh starting the tournament.
06:40 And then second thing you got to do is you got to enter the great clip sweepstakes.
06:44 Just go to your mobile app, and you can sign up right there to win two free tickets to
06:50 next year's Final Four, all expenses paid.
06:53 You can go to the men's or the women's tournament, your choice, whichever you want.
06:57 So that's the right way.
06:58 But don't do anything stupid like, you know, get upset when your team gets beat, cut your
07:03 bangs, you know, or have your friend shave your head or something at halftime thinking
07:07 you're not going to miss the game.
07:09 Don't do anything dumb like that.
07:11 Do the right thing, get cleaned up, get a good cut, sign up for the great clip sweepstakes
07:17 so you can go to next year's Final Four.
07:19 That's the right way.
07:20 So we've had fun doing that.
07:21 No doubt.
07:22 Coach, appreciate the time.
07:24 Thank you.
07:24 [BLANK_AUDIO]