Sept. 27, 2002
Each Friday during the school year, VU director of media relations Mike Sheridan takes you inside the Villanova Men's Basketball program with notes, quotes and anecdotes from the Wildcats.
VILLANOVA, Pa. - There was, in fact, no ceremonial passing of the torch. Indeed, when it came time for senior forward Ricky Wright to emerge as Villanova's prime interior scoring option in 2001-02, the transition was very subtle.
"Honestly, I didn't give a lot of thought to it," said the native of East Chicago, Ind. "We all had some adjustments to make with a new coaching staff on board so I was just concentrating on being solid. As we got going, I think my teammates and the coaches started to feel confidence in me inside.
"It just sort of evolved."
As he enters 2002-03, Ricky Wright is firmly established as Villanova's man on the box. It is a role he embraced a year ago, helping to fill a void occupied earlier in his Wildcat career by current National Basketball Association players Malik Allen and Michael Bradley. Ricky Wright averaged 13.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game, earning recognition as a member of the All Big East second team.
Now he is being asked to handle more, especially in the area of leadership.
"Last year, none of us really knew Coach Wright and the staff personally so it was a big adjustment for me as one of the older players," Ricky Wright says. "Now, we've been together for a year and Coach is encouraging all of the upperclassmen, and especially the seniors, to be more vocal."
It is not something that comes naturally to a crop of scholarship seniors that also includes Gary Buchanan and Andrew Sullivan. None is an especially demonstrative personality off the court.
"I think we've all tried to do it in our own way," Ricky Wright explains. "The biggest thing for us is to show the young guys the right way to do things."
It's a process that, by all accounts, has gone exceptionally well to date.
"With all the attention the new guys have gotten you would almost expect them to be jerks," Ricky Wright said. "But they're not. They're good guys and I give Coach Wright a lot of credit for bringing in good people who want to be a part of a team."
For his part, Ricky Wright has toiled dutifully this summer to insure that he will be one of the rocks around which the coaching staff will build the 2002-03 squad. Few players in the Big East are more effective in the low post and that's no minor achievement given the fact that the East Chicago product is frequently confronted by defenders who are 2-3 inches taller and 20-30 pounds heavier than him.
"I've been playing against taller guys for a long time now so I'm kind of used to it," Ricky Wright notes. "To me, it's a mental challenge more than it is a physical one. I try to recognize defenses and find the place where I can be effective on offense."
In the off-season, he has worked to extend the range on his face-up jumper and continued to build on the defensive foundation he established as a Villanova cornerstone in 2001-02.
"I really want to do the little things well this year," he said. "Things like tips and deflections that most fans might not even pay attention to are very important to us."...
In addition to the six new faces on the roster, there will be an additional fresh wrinkle for 2002-03 as Villanova debuts a new uniform. The new look is slated to be unveiled when the Wildcats take the floor for the exhibition opener on Nov. 6 against the Hoop Group.
The switch has been in the works for over a year.
"We were thinking of changing them prior to last year," noted Coordinator of Basketball Operations Billy Lange, the basketball staff's point person on the project. "But at that point it was too late. The merchandising campaign had already begun and we couldn't make the change mid-stream."
So what will we see?
"The term we used in my initial conversations with Coach Wright was old school," said Lange. "We wanted to have a more traditional look while also acknowledging that this is 2002."
It all began with a phone call to Nike, the athletic department's university apparel partner. Lange spent several hours on-line with the company's uniform creator as they settled on just what 'old school' would resemble. Then there were meetings with director of athletics Vince Nicastro and Villanova Sports Properties to insure that all parties affected were on the same page.
"Sometimes you think as a program you can make whatever changes you want," Lange explained. "But there are a lot of other considerations to keep in mind. Fortunately, everyone was on board with the more traditional look."
The new uniforms will emphasize the university's historic colors of navy blue and white. The only hint of maroon will be in the Villanova logo on the shorts. The Villanova word mark will be featured on both home and away jerseys. If you need a reference point, consider that the uniform worn during the 1985 NCAA championship season was a template of sorts.
It should be noted that the "short shorts" look of that era will not be making a return, much to the delight of the current roster.
"Most of our guys seem pretty excited about the new stuff," noted Lange. "Gary Buchanan was probably the exception. I think he felt like he'd had some success in the old uniforms and wasn't in a rush to change."
No alterations have been made to the men's basketball uniforms since prior to the 1996-97 campaign. The new uniforms are scheduled to arrive in mid-October. When they do, villanova.com will bring you photos...
A one-hour seminar titled "How to Motivate the Motivators" will be the topic Jay Wright will address in the Villanova Room of the Connelly Center on Oct. 8. It is a campus wide function open to faculty and staff...
On Friday Jay Wright is scheduled to attend the 2002 Enshrinement ceremonies at the Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Mass. In next week's Nova Notebook we'll take you along with the Wildcats coach as he heads north to the star-studded ceremony.
