What will Villanova look like under new coach Kyle Neptune? ‘Smart, disciplined, unselfish’
As Villanova was making its way through the grind of the Big East conference schedule in mid-February, head coach Jay Wright was starting to feel it was time to make good on promises he had been sharing with his coaching staff and close confidants over the years.
He was going to call it quits as the men’s basketball coach at Villanova, where he enjoyed unprecedented success, winning eight Big East regular season titles, two national championships and induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
At the time, only four people knew of his plans to step down: Wright, athletic director Mark Jackson and their wives. Nearly three weeks after Wildcats were eliminated in the national semifinals by eventual champion Kansas, Wright announced his retirement at age 60, stunning the college basketball world. While Wright is enjoying the fruits of retirement, including being home for Sunday dinners, expect him to be a presence on campus but not necessarily at basketball games this season.
Even though those same people in his circle rarely believed Wright when he mentioned his post-coaching plans, Jackson knew something was imminent because of the tone in his coach’s voice when the subject was broached.
For now, Wright’s coaching future is non-existent, even though his name is expected to be brought up whenever the unpredictable carousel, whether in college or professional basketball, heats up.
“Retirement for me means just retiring from being the head basketball coach at Villanova. That’s all. I am doing some other things,” Wright told USA TODAY Sports. “I am working with our president at the university level as his assistant. I’m enjoying that. Just being able to enjoy other aspects of the university: academic, social. Things I really didn’t get do as much. I will probably do some other things this year that I am looking into, but just not have that full-time responsibility of overseeing the basketball program.”
Jackson knew he had to move quick on securing his next head coach and it became obvious who the next person was to lead the program in the future.
Kyle Neptune, 37, was settling into his first offseason with Fordham, when he got a call from Jackson letting him know that the rumors were true surrounding Wright and wanting to know his interest in coming back to Villanova.
It was a short conversation, with a quick yes from Neptune, but the timing of any revelation on Neptune being named the new coach was accelerated as the media got hold of Villanova’s plans even though the administration wanted more time to make a formal announcement.
“When we had conversations about a succession plan and what we were going to about the future, it just kept pointing back to Kyle,” Jackson said. “Kyle had deep roots with our current roster, with our academic community. If you want stability and you want someone that understands the culture, the foundation and the principles of Villanova, nobody knew that better than Kyle.”
Fortunately for Neptune, the learning curve is not steep. He is accustomed with the program having spent eight seasons as assistant with the Wildcats before becoming Fordham’s head coach for a season and also recruiting many of the players on the Villanova roster.
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Wright doesn’t think Neptune will have an issue but admits it’s unique in spending one year at a job before moving on to the next.
“He is a really smart guy basketball wise and in terms of his emotional IQ, he’s smart. I like the way he has handled everything in his career,” Wright said. “And this is his next challenge and I expect him to handle this extremely well also. It’s always difficult when you take over any job. The good thing is he is in a unique situation in that he’s taking over a new team following a year where he took over a new team.”
Neptune, on the other hand, believes it is business as usual because of the culture and the knowledge of how Villanova basketball operates. Even though he spent only 13 months at Fordham, there was drastic improvement in the Rams. Fordham won two games in the pandemic shortened 2020-21 season before winning 16 games and improving its offensive by 15 points per game.
Still, the intrigue of coming back to the Philadelphia area was too good to pass up.
“The advantage of coming back here is that we knew all the people, we kept our entire staff and for the most part it was pretty familiar surroundings for me,” Neptune said.
When it comes to the mentor-mentee relationship, both Neptune and Wright say they are cognizant of respecting boundaries.