VILLANOVA NEWS & NOTES

September 30, 2008



Jay Wright had an opening on his staff since associate head coach Brett Gunning accepted a job on the Houston Rockets’ staff. Wright Completes Villanova Staff (Philly Daily News) by promoting Pat Chambers to associate head coach, Jason Donnelly to assistant coach, Keith Urgo to manager of basketball operations and hires Kyle Neptune as video coordinator.

Jay Wright has been working on the class of 2009 for some time and his efforts have been paying off with an elite trio of verbal commitments from Maalik Wayns, Isaiah Armwood and Mouphtau Yarou. Wright is now looking to cap off the class with a bang and Dominic Cheek and Terrell Vinson are two of the possibilities for their two open scholarships which will greatly increase the College Basketball Odds of the Wildcats advancing deep into the postseason in the future.


Villanova had an in-home visit with Cheek on September 23rd and he will visit the campus on an official visit this fall. He has already made an unofficial visit to Villanova back in August (among other previous trips to the Main Line).

The recent increase in highly recruited players choosing schools outside the traditional high-major conferences has sparked a lot of conversation recently. Several Big East schools felt the punch when Aaric Murray recently spurned offers and serious interest from schools such as West Virginia, Villanova, Rutgers, Pittsburgh, Connecticut and others and choose LaSalle of the Atlantic 10. Although many are shaking their heads, Aaric Murray’s Decision Makes Sense (Philadelphia Inquirer) to the one person it matters to the most, Aaric Murray.