In Seth Davis’ latest column for Sports Illustrated, he discusses his Top 10 candidates for Coach of the Year, among other topics. Davis ranks Jay Wright at #9 on the list, citing his use of guards once again, and the emergence of Corey Fisher.
“Jay Wright, Villanova. The Wildcats’ guard-heavy personality results more from necessity than design. (Wright swears he tries to recruit big men, but Nova’s reputation as Guard U scares them off.) But once again Wright has his team playing smart, tough, scrappy basketball. Villanova looked a little shaky at the start of the season as it blew through a weak nonconference schedule and then lost to Texas at Madison Square Garden, but the steady improvement of Wright’s players (most notably Corey Fisher) has paid off. And there is arguably no player in the country who has improved more over the course of his career than senior forward Dante Cunningham.”
Seth Davis also discusses some reader’s choices for NBA prospects, and answers some mailbag questions.
…Generally I don’t mind Seth Davis…he’s a little too “magoo” for me, but he comes off to me as a guy who actually puts in some research before he opens his mouth…which is evidenced by his shoutout to Dante’s continued improvement…
…I don’t agree with his assessment of Jim Calhoun…yes UConn was supposed to be good…but then they lost Jerome Dyson and everybody jumped off the bandwagon…so if they win the Big East Tournament and then go on a deep run in the NCAA’s, I think he deserves to be in the conversation since everybody outside the Big East wrote his team off…
…Regardless, that is two shout-outs to Wright as a COY candidate in the last few days…still don’t see it happening but hey you never know…maybe a BET Championship seals the deal…
February 26, 2009
To me COY has everything to do with expectations. At the start of the year where does the head coach think his team is at (For Nova it was around 20-24th in the country). Our Conference expectations were 10-8 as we have all noted here many times.
With the record that we own you have to like Jay getting love on the national stage. Cunningham’s improvement, emergence of the Coreys’ have all helped us get to where we are. Jay has farmed our expectations in November of middle of the pack in the Big East, top 25. To top 5 in the Big East and battling for a #2 seed. That has COY points.