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Former Villanova head coach Jay Wright, who won two titles during his time at the school, had to serve University of Kentucky head coach John Calipari a harsh dose of reality after the Wildcats’ first-round loss to #14-seed Oakland.
10, 15 years ago — during the days of John Wall and Demarcus Cousins and Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Davis — Calipari was able to dominate the college basketball landscape with “one-and-dones,” who were college players that were widely considered to be ready for the NBA but were only spending a year in college because of the league’s rules.
Today, however, largely due to NIL rules, the method of building a successful college basketball team has changed, which is the point that Wright made in his postgame analysis of UK’s shock loss.
“The era of taking these young freshmen and trying to play against older players is over,” Wright began.
“I think he did a phenomenal job with these guys all year getting them to be as successful as they were. You can see they’re playing against grown men. The guys on Kentucky will be far better pros than any of these guys on Oakland or any of these guys in the tournament. But they’re not as good college basketball players. At this point in their career, they’re not as disciplined yet as the guys from Oakland,” he continued.
“It’s not Cal’s fault. It’s they’re 18 years old, and they’re in this era where everyone’s telling them how great they are. Just show up in college and you’re gonna win. It doesn’t happen that way. And the more the guys stay in college because of NIL, it’s gonna be tougher for young teams like this to be successful.”
Jay Wright dropped the 🎤 on the state of Cal at UK moving forward (sorry for the camera work/recoding from the phone) pic.twitter.com/L083W2BoHg
— Mitch Moss (@MitchMossRadio) March 22, 2024
The thesis of Wright’s argument is simple and apt: NIL, which allows college athletes to earn money of their “Name, Image, and Likeness”, has therefore allowed them to stay in school longer as opposed to rushing to the NBA.
Because of that, they’re not only able to physically mature while still in school but also become a more cohesive, experienced team in the process — like San Diego St., for example, whose roster of seasoned college basketball players led them to the NCAA Tournament final last year.