NCAA Basketball: Best head coaching hire from each of last 25 seasons

2001: Jay Wright (Villanova)

This one was quite the offseason for the coaching carousel, highlighted by Bob Knight taking over at Texas Tech and Rick Pitino landing at Louisville. It’s also when Randy Bennett began his magnificent run at Saint Mary’s and when Bo Ryan took over at Wisconsin. Despite the accomplishments of these coaches, with Pitino winning a vacated title and Ryan responsible for two Final Fours, it’s clear that Wright is the runaway winner from 2001.

Wright had been a player at Bucknell and an assistant at a number of schools, including spending more than half a decade under Rollie Massimino, both at Villanova and UNLV near the end of his career. Wright’s first head coaching post came in 1994 at Hofstra, with him leading them to a pair of NCAA Tournament appearances at the end. Off to Villanova in 2001, Wright would rewrite the Wildcats’ history books over the next two decades.

Despite the fact that Villanova settled for the NIT in his first three seasons, he had this program in the Final Four by 2009. The Wildcats were a decent program in the old Big East but completely dominated the new one when it was reformed in 2013. In those final seasons, Wright’s team won a slew of conference titles, but that was nothing compared to their national success, cutting down the nets as national champions in both 2016 and 2018.