Texas Basketball: 3 early HC candidates that would be home run hires

Jay Wright, CBS basketball analyst/former Villanova head coach

There might not be a bigger home run candidate for the Longhorns to pursue ahead of next offseason to be the next head coach than the former Villanova Wildcats head coach and CBS Sports basketball analyst Jay Wright.

Texas would be shooting for the stars when it comes to the idea of pursuing Wright as a coaching candidate to replace Beard. But I think it would be pretty dumb for the Texas administration to not at least reach out to Wright to gauge his interest in taking the job.

The Longhorns have a lot working for them that could appeal to Wright. Texas has the resources and pocketbook to give Wright essentially a blank check if he were interested in taking this job on the Forty Acres.

I would imagine that if there was a job that will be open next offseason that would appeal to Wright, it would probably be Texas.

Drawing Wright out of retirement clearly wouldn’t be an easy task for CDC and the Longhorns, though. He appears to be pretty happy in retirement by some of his recent comments and interviews. Wright has even mentioned since the current college hoops season started that he misses coaching even less than he initially thought he would when he retired from the Villanova job last year.

However, if Texas could hypothetically find a way to lure Wright out of retirement, the Longhorns would be getting one of the most decorated coaches of the last decade in college hoops. During his two-decade run at Villanova, Wright claimed two National Championships, four Final Four appearances, eight regular season conference titles, and five conference tournament crowns.