Jay Wright’s retiring. It’s a shocking development, and the fact it’s shocking speaks to how well-orchestrated it was by Wright and Villanova. The first few reports were speculative and hesitant, and by the time the news was out with certainty it was already announced that Villanova had a successor in the form of Kyle Neptune, Wright’s former assistant who made a lot of progress with the Fordham program in his single year at the helm.
It’s a significant moment within college basketball. Wright was one of the sport’s quieter statesmen, but a leading one nonetheless. After the 2018 title, Villanova slowly faded into the background nationally, Wright’s legacy rather cemented and plenty of monkeys off his back, but Villanova was still always there, and so was Wright, with even a, “Remember us?” Final Four berth a month ago to keep his presence in the room alive.
Few out there have anything bad to say about Wright, and what he did at Villanova is noteworthy. Villanova’s a national power now, and they weren’t exactly that when he arrived. They were a fine program, sure—won that stunner of a title in the 80’s, had a solid run of national success back in the 60’s and 70’s—but they weren’t one of the sport’s ten best programs, which is what they are today. Wright took them from a program that made five NCAA Tournaments and two NIT’s in the 90’s to one that made every NCAA Tournament held after 2004 but one. Villanova was not the clear Big East power when he arrived. Villanova was not the clear Big Five power when he arrived. In many ways, what Wright did on the Main Line was more impressive than what Roy Williams did in Chapel Hill over a similar period. Williams had more to work with than Wright did.
Wright is only sixty years old, which is a young age for coaches to retire, but is kind of an old age for the comfortably wealthy to retire. The fact Wright’s retiring at this age and with so little notice has folks reacting, and predictably, some are force-fitting the current issues on their mind—NIL and the transfer portal—onto the development. There’s a specific take that says that, since Wright’s retirement follows the retirements of Williams and Mike Krzyzewski, clearly something is broken in college basketball and the old guard of coaches wants to get out now, the job having become too much. It’s a stupid take, but it’s an easy one to dissect, and hopefully such dissection can help us put the NIL/portal fearmongering to bed, at least for you, those enlightened few who read The Barking Crow.
The most obvious silliness in the Wright/Williams/Krzyzewski take is that Jim Boeheim, Tom Izzo, Rick Pitino, John Calipari, Bill Self, Bob Huggins, Thad Matta, Mark Few, Tony Bennett, and other prominent college coaches from the last twenty years remain on the sidelines, or in Matta’s case have returned to the sidelines. It’s a creative sample, to use only three coaches (one of whom was 70 at the time of his retirement, one of whom was 75) as your barometer, but if asked entering the 2020-21 season who the most prominent coaches in the game were, Wright, Williams, and Krzyzewski would have comprised just thirty percent of the list. Sure, Krzyzewski and Williams might have been the first two names on that list for some (especially ACC fans), but what do their retirements at rather old ages have to do with Wright’s retirement at the older end of middle age?
The second most obvious silliness is something we just hinted at: the ages of Williams and Krzyzewski at the time of their retirement. It’s nuts to be working a job as demanding as that of head college basketball coach into your seventies. It’s a wild choice. If anything, the fact more coaches aren’t retiring at 60 is a strong indicator that the changes in the college game are not making the job too overwhelming.
To be sure, the job is an all-consuming one, and the transfer portal and NIL have added complexity. Nobody is denying that. But why is increased complexity necessarily a bad thing? If ten new cancer treatments came to market, each especially adept at treating certain specific mutations, it would add a lot of complexity to oncologists’ jobs. It would also be a great thing for the world. NIL and the transfer portal are not cures for cancer, but they’re good things, and if they usher in an era in which the best coaches are those who do an excellent job delegating the right amount to their assistants, or where the best coaches retire at sixty and enjoy more time with their families, there’s nothing wrong about that, and it’s not bad for college basketball. Consistency of characters is big for a sport’s fanbase, yes, and in college sports, the coaches are the main characters. But what’s wrong with Chris Beard (49 years old) being a main character instead of Boeheim (77)?
What’s really frustrating about these takes—the only frustrating thing, since they’re mostly just a nuisance—is that they take away from the proper reaction to Wright’s retirement, which should be, “Damn, good for him. One of the best coaching careers of all time, and now he’s hopefully got decades of high-quality life ahead of him. Good for that guy. What a great example of not having your job be the absolute only thing in your life.”
Shaedon Sharpe Will Not Play for Kentucky
Shaedon Sharpe seems to have jumped the line, going from being 2022’s top recruit to a 2021 midyear acquisition for Kentucky (who never saw the court) to now, the NBA Draft. It’s a pivot from he and his family saying he’d return to Kentucky and actually play, and Kentucky fans—frustrated already with this year’s first-round loss (in a tournament they well could have won), last year’s miss of even the NIT, and no Final Four appearances since that 2015 team (which kind of choked)—are irate. He’s left the door open to returning, but as a projected top ten pick, the consensus is that he won’t be back in Lexington. He spent one semester at Kentucky (not even—three months, really), and now he moves on. Without playing a minute.
This…isn’t a bad thing? I mean, yeah, it sucks for Kentucky. Really sucks for Kentucky. Huge bummer for Kentucky, who would have had one of the best players in the country next year. But everyone made their choices here, and it’s not like poor John Calipari didn’t know Sharpe’s NBA Draft eligibility and forecast every step of the way. (Calipari, by the way, is saying the right things and is not at all making himself out to be “poor John Calipari.” We’re mocking the outraged, not Calipari.) The reclassification to enter college early and the change in Draft eligibility were twists and turns, yes, but it’s hard to believe they caught Calipari off guard. Is Sharpe a pioneer? Maybe. It’s a path for a handful of high school players to train with higher competition, minimize some risk, and enter the NBA a year earlier. As we’ve seen with other college basketball bypasses, though—playing overseas, doing the G-League thing, playing with whatever the hell Overtime Elite is—it probably won’t matter. At all. Not a bit. Maybe a couple guys do it a year. If they do: Who cares? It’s interesting and exciting, but it’s not going to significantly affect the college game.
Portal Moves
What could significantly affect the college game is this year’s actual transfer portal, where a lot’s going on! Tre Mitchell jumped into the fray yesterday, leaving Texas right as the Longhorns found out they’ll get Timmy Allen back. Big man with two years of eligibility remaining, comparable to Dawson Garcia in EvanMiya projections. Also entering the portal is Jaelin Llewellyn…again! On Tuesday (sorry, missed this yesterday), the Princeton graduate announced he still might end up at Clemson, but for the moment he’s reopening his recruitment “due to recent changes.” We can only hope he’s referring to Iowa State’s newfound need at point guard.
Is Marcus Stroman Ok?
Marcus Stroman had yet another bad outing last night for the Cubs, and he’s now at an 8.78 ERA over three starts, averaging about four and a half innings per start, striking out roughly a batter an inning, walking roughly a batter every two innings, and allowing one home run on average per outing. His xERA’s only 4.29, which is right in line with his 4.30 from last year, so this may just be some early-season wackiness, but his walk rate and home run rate are both at a career high in the early going, indicating some command issues are going on (his strikeout rate is up too, but that actually could also be indicating some command issues). We’ll see where he goes from here. Too early to be actively concerned, but not too early to be disappointed.
The Cubs start four games with the Pirates tonight, and those are important games. The Cubs are fighting an uphill battle this season, and while wins against the Brewers and Cardinals will be necessary to make it a competitive year (which isn’t an unreasonable goal!), winning against the Pirates is what makes those games against the Brewers and Cardinals matter. Mark Leiter Jr. gets the start tonight, and it’s a good opportunity for him, though the wind’s forecast to be blowing lightly out to right. We’ll see how far he goes.
Speaking of how far Leiter goes, the Cubs shook up their bullpen last night, trading Jesse Chavez to Atlanta for the DFA’d (D’dFA) Sean Newcomb. Newcomb’s not too different from Chavez in outlook—fringe contributor, might get DFA’d (D’dFA)—but he’s a lefty, and he has more upside than Chavez had. The Cubs included some cash in the deal. In other personnel news, the Giants acquired Cory Abbott before he could hit waivers. The Giants included some cash in that deal.
Miguel Cabrera, the Angels, the Guardians
Miguel Cabrera got himself up to 2,999 career hits yesterday, making every at-bat of his today watch-if-you-can TV. Elsewhere, the Angels took a three-game set from the Astros, moving them up to projected playoff position (if everything goes chalky from here, and we use FanGraphs’s Playoff Odds to define chalk), and the Guardians swept a doubleheader with the White Sox after the first two games of that series were rained out. Cleveland nearly doubled their division title probability with the wins.
Egg Bowl: Baseball Style
Mississippi and Mississippi State are each having bad years on the baseball diamond, but it’s a great rivalry and they start a series tonight in Oxford. So, if you’ve got a college sports itch this evening, that’s one place to scratch it.
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Games of interest, today and tonight:
- 1:10 PM EDT: Yankees @ Tigers (Regional TV) – Montgomery vs. Pineda (Miguel Cabrera goes for 3,000 hits)
- 1:10 PM EDT: Giants @ Mets (Regional TV, ESPN+) – DeSclafani vs. Carrasco
- 1:35 PM EDT: Blue Jays @ Red Sox (Regional TV) – Gausman vs. Houck
- 3:37 PM EDT: Orioles @ A’s (Regional TV) – Wells vs. Blackburn (Blackburn’s off to an intriguing start, better of the two games on in these hours)
- 6:40 PM EDT: Cardinals @ Marlins (Regional TV) – Hicks vs. López
- 7:00 PM EDT: Mississippi State @ Mississippi, Baseball (SEC Network)
- 7:30 PM EDT: Grizzlies @ Timberwolves (TNT)
- 7:40 PM EDT: Pirates @ Cubs (Regional TV) – Wilson vs. Leiter
- 9:00 PM EDT: Mavericks @ Jazz (NBA TV)
- 10:00 PM EDT: Warriors @ Nuggets (TNT)
