Jay Wright

As a young boy growing up in the suburbs of Philadelphia, Jay Wright fell in love with the game of basketball thanks in part to the epic battles being waged over at the Palestra each year between Big Five schools Temple, LaSalle, Penn, St. Joe’s, and the program Wright would ultimately lead to two national championships: Villanova. Wright began working his way up through the college coaching ranks, and soon he caught the eye of legendary coach Rollie Massimino. The pair forged a lifetime friendship at Villanova before heading west to UNLV. Wright finally landed his first head coaching job at Hofstra University in 1994 where he won four America East Conference titles in seven seasons. The two-time Naismith National Coach of the Year then began rebuilding Villanova into a Big East and national power. In a four-year span starting in 2014, the Wildcats won 33, 35, 32, and 36 games to go along with three regular season championships, two conference tournament titles, two trips to the NCAA Final Four, and the 2016 and 2018 national championships.