CalLifer said:
calumnus said:
CalLifer said:
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/33775177/villanova-jay-wright-retire-head-coach-kyle-neptune-take-over
I said somewhat OT because I still remember the poster/"insider" on a "rival" site to this one who was insistent that Jay Wright was seriously considering leaving Villanova to take over at Cal when Braun was fired (if I remember the timing correctly).
Getting Wright in 2008 would have been a huge coup and seems unlikely. Villanova just came off a Sweet 16 (loss to eventual champion Kansas) and that year would go on to the Final Four (so he had a good team coming back). Taking over a 17-16 NIT team (funny that got Braun fired, it would be celebrated with an extension now), seems unlikely.
Oh, it was 100% unlikely. There was just one insider who was very adamant that it was in the works. I think there was some small part of me that wanted it to be possible, but it was laughable that the person kept the momentum of it going.
That's how I recall it as well. The other side of the story (recollection is fuzzy at this point), is that Braun was stale, but not necessarily going to be fired until Monty sort of fell into Sandy Barbours lap. My recollection was there was a convo with Monty about possibly coming out of retirement if a good gig was available in the Bay Area - so the firing of Braun moved ahead knowing that Monty would take over.
That was a while ago, so my stories may be mixed up - but I do strongly recall that with both Braun and Tedford, there was a strong sense in their last couple seasons that they had both lost their focus/mojo/energy/whatever and needed to be replaced.
