TOM's Talks | Jay Wright

PA native. Coachwright has led the Wildcats program since two thousand and one, and in that near twenty year run, the Wildcats have gone on to win the Big East Conference Championships six times, fourteen NCUBA Tournament appearances, three Final four trips, and of course the crowning jewel of college hoops two nc Double A titles, the twenty sixteen and twenty eighteen NCAA Championships. And through it all, all of this success, he has remained humble and gracious. Here's my

conversation with Jay Right. Welcome to another edition of Tom's Talk and a great surprise, great guest here this week, Day Right, the head coach of Villanova. Coach, thank you so much. I don't know what the interview your equivalent of long time listener first time caller is, but for me this is great. I've admired you so much from afar, the way your teams play, how you handle yourself. So

thank you. And what's going on during this this month about August and college basketball particularly with going over Oh thanks Tons for the nice words. And it's good to hear your voice. It seems like things are normal again when I hear your voice, that's a good thing. Things are normal in Philly. What about like college basketball, I know you've had a good recruiting year. I don't know

if you get to go to AAU tournaments. I suspect not kind of a dead period for the NC double A tom it has been you know, for everybody, it's it's been just incredible, right and the same with college athletics. The thing for us is we you know, we don't have anything to complain about. You know, there's so many people that you know, by missing work are you know, families are struggling in and there's so many difficult things

going on. So I don't I don't in any way want to complain about us not being able to coach our players, not being able to be with us, because there's still our guys who are still home working out. Because we just have so much respect for all the first responders, what everybody's doing in this country. The doctors and all the people that have suffered with this virus M But you know, but given that, it's been bizarre for us. We literally have not seen our players since

UM in person, since March twelfth. UM. You know, we do zooms, we do face times, We were talking all the time, group, we have group chats UM. And same thing with recruiting time. We have not college coaches have not been able to go out and see any players UM in person since you know, since early March. So we've actually gotten four commitments verbal commitments from recruits that we never got on campus. Well, you get to meet

with them and their families in person. We just did everything through zoom And that's just been the reality of college basketball right now. And that speaks to your reputation in which you've built in terms of the program there that they were able to make that decision without being there and feeling that vibe which is so special on your campus. Now, the players you have gotten to see, at least through television are your former players playing right

now in the NBA. And I know you're proud of all your guys, but to watch you know, Dante and Mcal and Josh and of course Kyle Lowry must be really neat to watch them right now in August in the NBA season in Florida. Yeah. Man, I'm sure it's not easy for those guys being down in the bubble in Orlando. But I gotta selfishly say, um, I never get to watch regular season NBA basketball like I you know,

I'm able to watch these games. Usually by the time the playoffs come, we're done, so I can really watch playoff basketball, which I love. But um, I'm loving this, you know. And I love watching our guys and be able to follow them and watch a game in the afternoon, and um, it's it's really cool. I feel bad for for Jalen. Um. You know, Jalen Brunson has his shoulder injury. He's going well with his rehab, but they decided, you know, not to risk it having him play down. I know

he's he's really suffering not not being with his team. Um. Uh, he's he's he's got a spot out in Ocean City though he's doing right, but he's working out every day. Um. And and Ryan Arch same thing. You know, I know he's he's dying not not being down in Eric Paschal. Um, those guys, I feel bad for him because the beast all part of the bubble. It looks so cool man, Like you if anybody ever questioned whether these guys are playing for the love of the game or not, right

it is so clear right now. The passion and the energy these guys are playing with is really impressive. And you know, I know I'm gonna sound like an old fart saying this, but there's like there's no bs with the crowd, Like these guys are just bawling and getting getting after each other and not mess around the crowd and everything. As a basketball purist, I am loving this. And kudos to the NBA and these coaches and players are pulling this offense. It's really impressive. What do you

think of the Sixers? They play again here this afternoon as we speak, and beat has been dominant. What do you think of your hometown team? You know, I've said this so many times. I know I sound like a broken record, but Brett Brett Brown has dealt with so so much adversity as a coach. Things that are adversity to coaches are different than players. But when you get lineup changes and injuries and COVID nineteen and bubbles and for a coach, that stuff is really difficult, and he

just and youthful players right and changing rosters. I think he's done the best job of anybody in the NBA. I felt so bad for him the night the night they played Indiana and the Sixers battle to get a chance there at the end and Ben Simmons leaves Warren at the end to give up a three to a guy that's got fifty. You know, you know as a coach you're saying, don't leave that guy. You know, just being a young, aggressive player. But in the same vein

to pull off that game against San Antonio win. You know, you had the game san Antonio played great, and Shake Milton to keep his composure and and hit that shot after struggling a little bit early. Ben not having a great game but finding a way to win. I know that doesn't when you analyze teams, that doesn't look good. But as a coach, you know, if we we're gonna have nights when Ben's hot, Shake's hot, we're gonna win

those games. But if we could have those nights where we struggle a little bit and find ways to win, it's a good sign for that team. Coach one of the things Coach Brown has done has built culture, and it's taken time and obviously winning, you know, is maybe the best culture. But you've taken a proud Villanova tradition and you know, Duke has the brotherhood. But with your former players, the alumni, what you've built there, that's a huge thing and you should be awful proud of that.

Speak to that a little bit, well, Tom, you know you you said it. Um we we just we kind of built on what was there. You know, you can go back to the to the fifties. You know, um, George Raveling played for Villanova in the fifties, and you know Jimmy Huggard and Paul Arison and um, you know, um all Joe Ryan. You know, then you go through the sixties Wally Jones and and George Leftwich and uh

Johnny Jones and Bill Melchi. Only like these guys have all these stay Villanova and kept the tradition proud and supported the guys that come after them, have given back financially to the program, have gone on, you know, to the NBA as executives and coaches, Chris Ford, you know, players, and so that was all in place when we got there, we just you know, we just kind of accentuated it and and just brought it to light to everybody and said everybody in the program in the university, like, hey,

this has been going on for a long time here. This isn't normal. Like you all think this is normal. This isn't normal. This is something that we've we've really got to celebrate. And you know, personally, I feel so blessed to be a part of it, and we make sure that our players aren't feel the same way. Coach. Part of it is the Augustinian tradition. I myself went to a high school run by Benedictan monks, and same thing in college. Believe it or not played basketball a

couple of years. But and you incorporate that in like with father Rob and you know, like you're dining buddy, you're coaching the summer. Greg Popovich talks about NBA players he likes guys that are over themselves. Well, your guys aren't quite over themselves. They're eighteen to twenty two years old. They're they're feeling big man on campus and understand what we saw. They're high schooled all Americans. But you, guys, you want players that sacrifice that understand what teams all about.

Talk about that a little bit because that isn't that a big part of the fabric of your organization of your program. Yeah, that's a great it's a great point in time, and it really is. You know, it's kind of our secret sauce that you know, if people want to hear about it, I'll talk about it. Sometimes people don't want to hear about it. So but you know, Father Rob and the Augustinian Values are a big, big

part of our program. You know. In sixteen when we won the championship, Yeah, I was urged to write a book by a number of people. I didn't want to. I wanted to. I wanted I wanted to list um. I wanted that season. I took notes on every sermon that Father Rob gave before every game because it impacted us every game. But they told me that religion doesn't sell. You can't do that. But you know, as you read

the book. The books titled Attitude, which is important to us, but it's it's a lot Father Rob's big in that and it really speaks to the fact that, you know, the Augustinian values are about community and about um improving yourself as an individual through being a part of a community and and and really understanding that you become your best self individually when you actually serve others and think

about others. And it's really true and it works, and um, it's it's something that's always been in place at Villanova because of the Augustinians, and you know, we just incorp it's easy. It's there every day. So when the players are with us, they're hearing about that and learning about it. And when they leave us and go on campus with the fellow students and alumni, they hear about it. So it's a big part of our our program. And you know,

it's about you know, you, you become us. You know, we don't become you, and you're actually going to be your best self by being a part of this community. The thing I liked that one of the anecdotes was Holy Thursday and you guys were en route to the final four. Father Rob was doing the Washington the feet and hoops. He washed your feet first with a picture of ice tea. You know, we're all supposed to be

such professionals, so good at what we do. He's one of the best preachers I've ever seen and he's always so prepared. And on that Holy Thursday before we played in the Sweet sixteen, he had that all prepared, but he didn't tell me he was going to do it. And right before he said, okay, we're gonna wash each other's feet, you know, like like Christ did with his disciples. Like WHOA, I really didn't, but I always trust him.

I was like, all right, And he had a picture of water ready every day, and he just grabbed the wrong picture. He started with me and I'm looking at him, poor iced tea on my feet. We looked at each other, just laughed and switched the picture and then I took the water and washed washed arches. Speak well, you have the chapel in your virtual background. And when I first started some twenty five years ago, and I was a

little phenom as a young baseball player. But by this time we're playing softball, dammy bat and ninth, I was in right field by the cemetery under a tree. But I used to go in the chapel with my baseball glob in the pew and have a little visit before I went to play summer soft all those years ago. I know that you're talking about right there. I know ye right talking about you talk about off the wall.

I had to play under the tree sixteen the win over Carolina and eighteen was incredible and Dante has an awesome game, but you kind of sent you we're going to beat Michigan the way that thing was was going. But the Carolina game, I mean, I would imagine at golf outings and cherry functions and when you're out and about, people probably approach you and tell you how it went for them. I mean, our family has a story with blankets and thrown in the air. I mean, that was

such a remarkable, incredible game. Talk a little bit about that and winning the championship. First, you know, for you the first time you know you're you're you're you're right on time when you're we learned this in O nine, the first time we went to the final four, and and so you're kind of thinking about it in sixteen and that when you're in that run, you're never home. You know, you you're at the sight of all these tournaments.

And then you know, let's say you went on Sunday, you get back late Sunday night, you're there Monday, and then Tuesday you leave for the next sight so you hear all these stories about like what's going on back at home, but you really you don't know. And in sixteen it was so funny and just as you said, I still run into people these days that showed me. Now everybody has videos, and they showed me that look,

look this is this is my family watching it. And it's funny to think, like at that time, because there was a time out with four point seven seconds, I guess everyone said, you know what, I'm all right, this is it. It's for I'm videotaping this. Because everybody's got a video of their you know, wherever they were, in a bar, their family room. It's and a lot of times it's families, you know, and you you see you see everybody families going crazy and crying and hugging, and

it's it's a joy for me to relive it. It's it's emotional every time you see someone's family enjoy that. It's it's really, you know, it's it's a it's a blessing to have been a part of that. One of the things I like so much as your humility and like I said, how you've handled yourself. And after that, when your guys came back to campus, and there were so many appearances and everything, and at one point you gathered the group and you said, look, you haven't changed.

People's perception of you has changed, right, exactly exactly. You know. We it's um, you know, we're we you know, we tell our guys all the time we're we're basketball players. Were just the same as everybody else. You know. We get a lot of attention, you know, and and there's a responsibility that comes with this. But we've got to remain humble for ourselves or we're you know, because this stuff is short lived, you know. And and if if you you know, you really want to keep living that out,

it's it's you're not gonna have a happy life. It's really you know, what kind of husband are you, what kind of father are you? What kind of brother are you? A kind of classmate friend? It's really for your own good to stay humble and um And you know, and as you know, Tom, being in pro sports, like when you if you don't work at that and address it, it's it can be overwhelming, you know, and especially for you know, if you're eighteen, nineteen twenty and you win

a national championship, imagine Chris Jenkins. I was always so proud of how he handled and still does handles that shot. You know, he's not really living off it. You know, he's trying to move on with his life. Like he'll talk about it, and you know it doesn't hide from it. But it can't define you. You know, it's just got to be something that you did that you're a part of and what kind of person you are that's and how you treat people, that's what's got to define you.

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is Hippo compliant. For more information, visit novacare dot com. And now back to my conversation with Jay Wright. I want to get into one more thing about your coaching, which I could go on forever, and I'll let you get out here. I want to talk about USA basketball also. But one of your mantras to your players is next play. And that is if you make a mistake or even if you you know you're dunk it and you're all that,

get back and get on to the next play. And that, like I was saying, that could carry over to in life. You know, we all make mistakes. Like the baby almost hit the table, but she didn't. She's gonna be fine. Let's go on to the next play. Talk about that and how you've instilled that in your players. Well, that's the beauty of coaching college kids, right They're still learning and so we can we can incorporate and they expect you to in their parents expect you to incorporate life

lessons with basketball. So one of the most important characteristics we try to instill in them and teach them is that of having a positive attitude and that we don't have control of what happens to us in life. You can look at this pandemic right now, but we do have control of how we respond to it, and that's our attitude. Our attitude is how we respond to things that happen to us in life. And we start with bad because that's what they're thinking about when they commit him.

And in practice we give we give attitude points to the opponent. If if you turn the ball over and you drop your head or don't sprint back or complain, the other team gets an attitude point. And everything we do is competitive. If if you go down and get fouled and that REP practice doesn't call it and you complain to rep, that's an attitude point for the other team. So you know, we we we try to repeat that in teaching guys that Okay, something negative just happened. You

control how you respond on the next play. And so in basketball it's next play. In life, it's next day. You are all you guys are so competitive, and I, like I said, I tell high school coaches ce Yo coaches watch Villanova play defense. So and I don't know how much you want to reveal, but I know, like if Kyle Lowry he's a dog, I know how I can tell how you run your practices and you are very you have to be fiery, like dump I went

to France practices. I know exactly what goes on at the David Center, and that's how you get ready for game day. Touch on that however you feel appropriate. Yeah, you know, we we have. It's on the wall before you walk out onto the court of practice. It's something we talk about all the time that we practice to create habits, just like we talked about attitude. We practice to create habits. They're gonna make us success in the

most difficult situations. So we're not practicing for you know, a game against you know, a low level Division one team at home that everything's going to work out great. We're practicing for the difficult situations at Kansas, sold out crowd, referees making bad calls, Kansas is playing great. What are the habits that we have to create every play, every day so that when we're in that situation we don't

think about it. It's just ingrained in us. And that's really hard to do, and it takes discipline from the coaching staff to not miss anything and not let anything go. Don't. You don't have to yell about it or be nasty about it, but you just you have to be demanding and discipline as a coach and the coaching staff on everything you do. The way you walk on the court, the way you stretch, the way you move from one drill to another. It all matters that you're either creating

good habits or bad habits. And it's something that we work hard on every day and it takes a lot of it takes a lot of energy. I'm proud of our assistants do a great job of that. You're one of the best coaches in college basketball. You've got arguably the best job in college basketball. You're at a special place. But there have been over the year's overtures. But tell the story that Jimmy Balbano, the late Jim Valvano shared

with you. You spoke to Bill Raftree in an interview a few years back, and Valvano told you over at dinner, I presume that don't mess what's happened. He told you his best experience, his most happy time was at Little Iona College. And this is a former NC State NCAA champion. What did he tell you? Yeah, man, your research, Tim, that is one of my favorites. We were actually in Atlantic City, Rollie Massimino, Steve Pinone, Jimmy Valvano, myself, they had just the two of them had just on Jay

Johnstone's Wacky World of Sports TV show. Was credible. It's like two in the morning. They got some some guy Hope as a Talian restaurant and we're drinking wine and Jimmy Babanda said to me, you want to be a head coach, right kid? And I said yeah. He said, let me tell you something. You're gonna get a job working for coach masks. You're gonna get a head coaching job in when you find a good one. Don't don't

worry about how big time it is. You just make sure if you find a place you like, you stay there. Don't mess with happy. If you're happy in coaching, you stick there. He said. When I was at Iona, I was back home and all my friends around me, Little Iona. We were winning. I was with family friends as the happiest I ever was in life, he say. And he was the ad actually that time at NC State, because you know, I love NC State. We won a national championship. I'm a d But if I look back at my coaching,

the happiest I ever was was that Iona. I shouldn't have left. So if you ever get that chance, don't mess with happy. It's a great story because pressures come to sometimes when you have a different expectations. So you've been a part of USA Basketball for years, but now you're with what they called the senior men's select team and this is our Olympic team, which you would probably be getting ready to go to China right now for the Olympics. What was that like last summer to be

around those players, Coach Pop, Coach Kerr, Coach Pierce. I mean, it must have been pretty special, incredible for me for a basketball junkie from Philadelphia to be in that environment every day was a dream come true. Being it you know what coaches means with with coach Pop and Lloyd Pierce and Steve Kerr, Jeff and Gunde was with us on that staff, it was It was amazing. It was

a basketball junkie's dream. All the things that you would think they would talk about do they did, because they're they're all basketball geniuses, they're all characters, they're all fun loving, humble guys. It was forty five days together in Australia and China, and you know, Pops, Dinners and and and the players we had were just incredible guys because they were all guys that came to the trials thinking initially

thinking they were going to be the developmental team. That was going to practice against the Olympics, you know, the World Cup team, but all the older guys opted out for good reasons really, Um, so they all became the team and they were all so humble and hungry and coachable, and um you know, we we came in fifth, but like we were, we were we were a possession of way,

you know, from from winning that thing. And Spain won it and we had we had beaten Spain in an exhibition game in a in a really good game, and we were good enough to win it. We were proud of our guys. We were really sad that we could win the goal for the US, but in a weird way, we really felt good about what our guys sacrificed and gave up for their country. And we all loved working together as a staff. Well, here's the next summer and bringing home the goal if they play the games in

twenty twenty one, that is expected. Thanks coach, Thank you so much. I so much appreciate it. I really enjoyed it, and I wish you all the best to have a great rest of the summer and hope everything turns out with your team this year. Thanks Tom, great being with your day Thanks for listening to Tom's talks with me Tom McGinnis on the seventy six Ers podcast Network check for new episodes every weekend.