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Villanova officially announces successor for Jay Wright

ns_headshot_2024-clearby:Nick Schultz•04/20/22•

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Photo by Mitchell Leff/Getty Images

It’s official. Kyle Neptune will be the next Villanova head coach.

The Wildcats officially announced Neptune, who served as the head coach at Fordham this past season, will succeed Jay Wright. Neptune was an assistant at Villanova from 2013-21 before becoming the head coach at Fordham prior to the 2021-22 season.

“When looking for a successor, we wanted a candidate who could navigate the changing landscape of collegiate athletics and keep Villanova in a position of strength — now and in the future,” Villanova athletic director Mark Jackson said. “After meeting with several exceptional candidates, we found all those attributes and more in Kyle Neptune. Kyle quickly stood out for his basketball knowledge, recruiting savvy and natural ability to connect with student-athletes and coaches.”

Wright is staying on at Villanova away from the court, though. In the press release, the university announced he’ll serve as a special assistant to the president and help with fundraising, advising and education, among other duties.

Neptune took the Rams to a 16-16 overall record in this season, including an 8-10 record in Atlantic 10 action. It was his first head coaching job, and now he has the task of taking over for Wright, who spent 21 years on the Villanova sidelines.

After playing college basketball at Lehigh, Neptune got into coaching after a brief professional career in Europe and in Puerto Rico. Villanova gave him his first opportunity as a video coordinator from 2008-10 before he became a full-time assistant at Niagara. He spent three seasons there before joining Wright’s bench. While with the Wildcats, Neptune was part of two national championships in 2016 and 2018, meaning he knows what it takes to succeed at Villanova.

Villanova coach Jay Wright announces retirement from coaching

News broke Wednesday that Wright was “seriously considering” retirement, and reports came in confirming he indeed made the decision. Neptune’s name came up almost immediately, with CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein and The Athletic and Stadium’s Shams Charania first reporting the decision.

Wright became a head coach for the first time in 1994 at Hofstra, a decade after he became an assistant at Rochester. He has a 642-282 record in the head chair, and a 34-16 record in the NCAA Tournament.

He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2021 and won a gold medal as an assistant coach for the United State’s men’s national basketball team during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Wright also has two Naismith College Coach of the Year awards to his name, in addition to six Big East Coach of the Year honors.