Jay Wright’s retirement came as a big surprise to the college basketball world, but he saw it coming some time ago.
Wright said at a Friday press conference that he felt he had lost “the edge” this past season, and did not want to carry on if he was unwilling to give 100 percent to the job.
“The edge always came natural to me,” Wright said, via Matt Breen of the Philadelphia Inquirer. “I wouldn’t have to think about anything that I did. I would just go into a team meeting or practice and have everything set. I started thinking like ‘You have to get yourself fired up here. Let’s go.’ We say to our players, ‘You’re either 100% in or you’re against us.’…We couldn’t ask the players to give 100% and I’m giving 70%. It was the right time.”
If Wright was losing his edge, it did not show. Villanova still went to the Final Four, and few would have suspected that Wright was feeling at all sluggish. The fact that he kept it secret up until the abrupt announcement is a credit to him as well.
