Jay Wright almost left Villanova to become Sixers coach over a decade ago. Here’s why he stayed.

Hall of Famer Jay Wright is one of the greatest coaches in the history of Philadelphia-area basketball. The longtime former Villanova coach won two national championships and nine Big East titles during his 21 years with the program.

Wright developed a number of NBA players during his time with the Wildcats, including Jalen Brunson, Kyle Lowry, and Mikal Bridges. But Wright, despite speculation on several occasions, never made the leap to coaching at the NBA level.

On the 94WIP Morning Show on Thursday, Wright discussed the time he almost became the 76ers’ head coach during Ed Stefanski’s tenure as general manager from 2007-11.

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“As close as I had ever been,” Wright said. “It was classic Philly. Ed lived about five minutes from me, right here in Wayne. I went over to his house, he had hoagies cut up. ... Only in Philly is that your interview for a head coaching job. I knew him really well, I trusted him. I can’t remember, we had just gone to a final eight or something, or had some success, and I just thought, the Sixers had a good team. If I’m ever going to do this — which every basketball coach wants to coach in the NBA — this would be the time to do it.

“As I thought about it, I thought, ‘You go to the NBA, you’re probably going to get fired in three to four years anyway, just the way it happens in the NBA.’ And then what would I want to do when I get fired? Well, I probably would want to go back to coach college, and I just thought, ‘Well I’m here.’ There’s no guarantee you can get another good college job after you get fired, so why would I do that?”

Some quick research suggests that the year in question is possibly 2009, after the Sixers fired Maurice Cheeks (and installed Tony DiLeo as the interim head coach). Instead of Wright, whose Villanova team was coming off a Final Four trip, the team hired Eddie Jordan to be the coach, but he was fired after just one season. That also means the team could have tried to hire Wright the following season instead of Doug Collins, but Villanova wasn’t coming off a deep tournament run that year, instead getting upset in the second round.

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Wright never ended up making the leap to the NBA, retiring from Villanova after the 2021-22 season to the surprise of many. Wright said on the show that he has no interest in returning to coaching — especially after watching Kyle Neptune and Villanova lose to St. Joseph’s on Wednesday.

But despite never coaching in the NBA, Wright was a longtime assistant and coach with USA Basketball, winning a gold medal at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, which gave him the opportunity he craved: to coach the world’s top players.

“Coaching in the Olympics, and I did that for maybe 20 years with the USA team with [Mike Krzyzewski] and with [Gregg Popovich], and coaching those guys allowed me to scratch that itch. I loved coaching those guys. Those teams, we had the best of the best, so it was pretty cool, but I’m loving watching [the Sixers]. I think Nick Nurse is doing an amazing job.”

Wright tried his hand as a college basketball analyst last season, and drew rave reviews during the NCAA Tournament.