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Villanova Basketball: Top 10 teams ever under head coach Jay Wright

By Bryan Mauro

VILLANOVA, PENNSYLVANIA - JANUARY 05: Head coach Jay Wright of the Villanova Wildcats looks on after defeating the Creighton Bluejays at Finneran Pavilion on January 05, 2022 in Villanova, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images)
VILLANOVA, PENNSYLVANIA - JANUARY 05: Head coach Jay Wright of the Villanova Wildcats looks on after defeating the Creighton Bluejays at Finneran Pavilion on January 05, 2022 in Villanova, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Tim Nwachukwu/Getty Images) /
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Dante Cunningham Villanova Wildcats (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
Dante Cunningham Villanova Wildcats (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /

5. 2008-2009

Record: 30-8 (13-5 in Big East) – Final Four appearance

Was the 2008-2009 team better overall than the 2016-2017 team talent-wise… likely not. But they had a great team who won 30 games and made the first final four for coach Wright. Making that final four with this team was improbable. Villanova was not picked by many to make the final four.

Coach Wright was showing that he could make a huge run in the NCAA tournament and the teams after this one struggled for a bit in the NCAA tournament and sometimes in the regular season, but this was the start of something magical for Villanova and it should have triggered that they found the right coach.

Heading into the season, Villanova was coming off an Elite Eight appearance as a 12 seed and entered the year preseason ranked for the second time under Wright. This team signaled a changing of the guard as every team but two from this moment on was preseason ranked. It was the first team to win 30 games and they made their first final four since the Rollie Massimino days.

Villanova didn’t have the most efficient offense and they didn’t shoot a ton of threes, but they did get to the line a ton, protect the ball, and allowed less than 70 points per game. At the culmination of the Final Four run, the Wildcats ended up a top 15 team in the country and put their program on the map.