Wednesday night, Jay Wright announced his retirement as head coach of the Villanova Wildcats. Two days later, the tenured coach held his official retirement press conference.
During the conference, Wright explained his reasoning for stepping down after such a successful career. He said that he'd been thinking about retirement “for a few years,” but knew that this “was the right time.”
NBC Sports Philadelphia's John Clark tweeted Wright's explanation during the conference Friday morning.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a few years. During this season, it started to hit me, that it was the right time. I started to feel I didn’t have the edge that I’ve always had. The edge that always came natural”
-Jay Wright knew this was right time to retire pic.twitter.com/WmQbc1UawJ
— John Clark (@JClarkNBCS) April 22, 2022
The Wildcats coach claims that this season, he “didn't have the edge” that he's had throughout his 21-year career. However, that didn't stop Villanova from having a remarkable season and lengthy postseason run.
Wright credited the Wildcats' success this season to his team and staff. That being said, he didn't want to break the news to them until the season had officially ended.
“Let's wait until the end of the season and then we'll deal with this,” Wright said at the press conference, explaining the predicament he was in at the time. He kept his retirement private through the end of the regular season, only letting a small circle of people know about the decision.
The season didn't end as soon as they had expected. As Wright explained it, the Wildcats “just kept winning and winning and winning,” extending their season to early April. The team made it all the way to the Final Four of the 2022 NCAA March Madness tournament before falling to Kansas University.
The coach led Villanova to two NCAA Division I Tournament wins in 21 seasons.