VILLANOVA, Pa. -- Jay Wright received one heck of a reward for knocking off the No. 1 team in the country.
One day after his fourth-ranked Wildcats beat Connecticut, Villanova on Tuesday gave Wright a seven-year contract extension through the 2012-13 season that gives him many more chances to beat a No. 1 -- and maybe even take his team to the coveted spot himself.
"The timing of this is incredible," Wright said, smiling. "I know it looks like we really planned this well."
It was an incredible 24 hours for Wright after the Wildcats (20-2, 10-1 Big East) beat the Huskies 69-64 Monday night, their first victory over a top-ranked team in nearly 11 years.
Wright and Villanova athletic director Vince Nicastro had talked about an extension since spring after the Wildcats returned to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999. The timing of the announcement was purely coincidental, since the new deal couldn't be approved until the board of trustees meeting Tuesday morning.
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| Jay Wright is 95-56 at Villanova. (Getty Images) |
The Wildcats raced to their best start in conference history and have their sights set on a No. 1 seed in this year's tournament. They've done it with a unique four-guard starting lineup that was born out of necessity when star forward Curtis Sumpter was lost with a torn ACL.
"We're right where we wanted to be right now," Wright said. "Honestly, I didn't think it would take this long. God had other plans. We had some struggles."
Hired in 2001 to replace Steve Lappas, the Wildcats went to the NIT in Wright's first three seasons. Parts of two seasons were severely derailed because of a phone-card scandal that forced the Wildcats to field a seven-man team and greatly underachieve, including a 15-16 mark in 2002-03.
The 44-year-old Wright banked Villanova's turnaround on this year's highly recruited senior class of Allan Ray, Randy Foye, Jason Fraser and Sumpter. They all played major roles in the renaissance the past two seasons, even if injuries have only rarely allowed them on the court at the same time.
"When we had some tough times a couple of years ago, we were all concerned about the program," Wright said. "I never, ever worried about my job. We all worried about the program."
Wright, a Churchville native, played college basketball at Bucknell and started as an assistant at Rochester and Drexel. He spent five seasons at Villanova as Rollie Massimino's assistant, then followed him to UNLV for another two years before taking the head coaching job at Hofstra in 1994.
Wright spent seven seasons at Hofstra and took them to two consecutive NCAA Tournaments. In four seasons with Villanova, Wright has a 95-56 record.
"My family's here. I'm from here," Wright said. "It just doesn't get any better."
Wright had a contract that could have automatically rolled over and had at least another year left, but Nicastro wanted to lock up his suddenly hot coach now before other teams came calling.
"It made sense that we could get it done and just eliminate any speculation that might occur over the next six to eight weeks," Nicastro said.
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