Villanova Wins 2nd Title after 31 Years; Arkansas Basketball Fans Should Take Notice
By Cory Thone
Jay Wright just led the Villanova Wildcats to their first national championship in 31 years. Wright was an assistant on the 1985 championship team for the Wildcats and was hired in 2001 to help bring Nova back to national prominence. Sound familiar, Hog fans?
Arkansas basketball fans should take a good hard look at Villanova right now. The Wildcats were struggling towards the end of the Steve Lappas era, and fans were ready for a change. Nova decided that the best course of action was to bring in someone that had been on the sidelines the last time the Wildcats won a title. They went and snagged former assistant coach Jay Wright, and he just won the national championship.
Granted, I skipped over some stuff there in the middle, but Nova has accomplished exactly what Arkansas had hoped to when they brought in Mike Anderson. The Wildcats struggled through Wright’s first few years, making the NIT from 2001-2004.
Wright took Nova to the Sweet Sixteen in 2005, and the Elite Eight in 2006, but the ride wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows for Wright. In 2009, the Wildcats made it all the way to the Final Four before falling to UNC, and were expected to make a deep run again in the upcoming years.
The Wildcats lost in the second round of the NCAA in back to back years to Saint Mary’s and North Carolina State. Fans began to wonder if Wright was the same kind of coach that Steve Lappas was; A good recruiter and regular season coach, but unable to win the big one.
Now he’s cutting down nets.
The biggest thing that has aided Wright in his time at Villanova has been the consistency that he brought to the program. His rebuild of the program and success in both recruiting and coaching should be a roadmap for success for a team like Arkansas. The Razorbacks have a coach in Mike Anderson that can provide this type of consistency, and that can get the Hogs back into the NCAA tournament consistently.
The question is, will he do it fast enough? Wright had the Wildcats in the tournament in year 4, and has made the postseason (NIT or NCAA) in every year at Villanova. However, the Cats weren’t in as dire straights as Arkansas was when Anderson got here, and if while Anderson is coming off of his worst season at Arkansas, (or ever as a head coach at any school) that doesn’t mean Razorback fans should abandon him just yet.
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If Anderson gets the Razorbacks back to the NCAA tournament, he’ll have made the postseason 3 of the last 4 years. He’ll be bringing back a lot of talent and (hopefully) have brought in some more guys in the upcoming recruiting class. Despite the poor showing in 2015, all is not lost for Anderson and the Arkansas basketball program.
31 years is a long time between titles. Villanova found a coach who fit their program, and they gave him the time to assemble the correct squad. Is Anderson the correct fit at Arkansas? Maybe. I certainly hope so. But if he wants to get a chance to pull a Nova in Fayetteville, he’s going to have to show that he can consistently make the postseason.
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The issue is, this might be his last chance to show it.