”I had never done it before, and I’m not doing it this season,” Wright said.

So what made Wright in 2015 suddenly want to jot down the religious reflections?

”Divine intervention,” Wright said.

Not long after the Wildcats clipped the championship nets with a buzzer-beating win , Wright thought perhaps he could turn Hagan’s 30-plus homilies into a bit of a commemorative collection.

”That’s what I wanted to do. But you meet with the publisher, and they said, I’m not sure 40 homilies can be successful,” Wright said, laughing.

Wright instead was persuaded to collaborate with Villanova media relations ace Mike Sheridan to recount the championship run instead, and turned the tales into the new book, ”Attitude: Develop a Winning Mindset On and Off the Court.”

Wright goes inside the locker room better than any beat writer – in fairness, he had top access – and sprinkles stories from his start in coaching all through that big April night in Houston when the Wildcats won it all.

”With the entire crowd on its feet and barely half a second left in regulation, Kris raised up in his textbook form and released the ball. … ”

Jeez, Jay, don’t leave us in suspense.

Skip the epilogue and pay heed to the spoiler alert, Villanova’s celebration still hasn’t really subsided, even after stretching from a parade in downtown Philadelphia to Spain and back.

Wright may have to get cracking on a sequel: Villanova (27-3) won a fourth straight Big East championship and should be a lock to earn a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Wright’s book outlines the steps Villanova made to reach the pinnacle of college basketball and is sprinkled with inspirational leadership tidbits (Failure Isn’t Forever) that showcase how it takes more than topflight talent to build a prominent program.

Wright said his only concern was revealing too much from deep behind the scenes of the private Catholic school.

”We talk to the players a lot about how we’re family,” Wright said. ”We want to try and keep our business within family. I always talk to the guys about that. Then after that, I go out and write a book.”

Wright, in his 16th season at Villanova, touches on faith and Hagan plays a prominent role in ”Attitude.”

”I definitely consider myself a spiritual guy,” Wright said. ”I don’t know how that comes across, but I do. In the book, I think it comes through.”

His most gripping story comes from before the Wildcats played Miami in the regional semifinal. Hagan’s speech touched on humility and commitment to serving others; the sacrifices one must make to pick someone up who is down.

Hagan challenged the Wildcats to remove their sneakers and socks and wash each other’s feet. Hagan washed Wright’s feet (with iced tea) and Wright turned and washed point guard Ryan Arcidiacono’s feet with a pitcher of water. Wright wrote ”it was as powerful a moment as we had experienced at any point in the season.”

”It really showed how much all of us were dialed in to each other,” Wright said. ”Father Rob would normally ask me before he does something like that. Or we would discuss it. But he came to me first and I thought, wow, I’m cool with this but are we ready for this? Is this team ready for this together? But it was so natural. Coming out of that, I think we all realized, we’re on another level of togetherness here.”

The Wildcats had a week layoff headed into Saturday’s finale against Georgetown, and Wright went on publicity blitz that had him talking Oscars fashion on ESPN. His tasteful designer suits (call the next book, ”50 Shades of Jay”) always put him on coaching’s best-dressed lists.

Charles Barkley wrote the foreword and Wright narrated the introduction for the audio version.

”I didn’t want to seem like, OK, you won a championship, now you have all the answers,” he said.

Maybe not, but Wright knows more big things are ahead and ”Attitude” is more than a bookend to his career.

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For more AP college basketball: http://collegebasketball.ap.org

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Villanova has handled anything that’s come its way to this point, but everything ratchets up another level now that the Wildcats are No. 1 in the AP Top 25 for the second time in school history.

”So far, we have,” coach Jay Wright said about managing expectations. ”This puts more on top of that. I do think last year when we were ranked No. 1, we handled it pretty well but I do think it got to a point by the time we got to Xavier where it got to us a little bit.”

Villanova had to adjust to being No. 1 for the first time in school history last season. The Wildcats handled it well through the first two weeks, but the pressure continued to build, contributing to a loss to Xavier.

Villanova went on to win the national championship and entered this season ranked No. 4 in the AP preseason poll. The Wildcats moved up to No. 2 by week 3 and this week received 57 of 65 first-place votes to supplant Kentucky at No. 1.

The Wildcats (8-0) at least know what to expect heading into games against La Salle on Tuesday and No. 23 Notre Dame on Saturday.

”We know what it’s like,” Wright said. ”We know what the attention is like, we know what the effort of the other team is like. Our first thought is, this gets La Salle to even another level.”

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KENTUCKY BOUNCEBACK

Kentucky coach John Calipari said last week that he wanted his team to play a close game after the Wildcats won their first seven by 21 points or more.

Kentucky got more than that on Saturday, when it lost 97-92 to then-No. 11 UCLA in Lexington. The loss ended the Wildcats’ home winning streak at 42 games and dropped them to No. 6 in this week’s poll.

Kentucky (7-1) hosts Valparaiso on Wednesday and Hofstra on Sunday.

”There are great lessons out of this,” Calipari said after the UCLA defeat. ”I wish we would have come back and won. I would have liked to learn from that lesson a little bit more. But sometimes you need to get hit on the chin, especially at home.”

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BRUINS RISING

UCLA’s win over Kentucky gave the Bruins (9-0) a huge boost in the poll, moving them up nine spots to No. 2 on Monday. They also received two first-place votes.

UCLA also gets to savor the victory over the Wildcats, getting a week off before facing another difficult game Saturday against Michigan at Pauley Pavilion.

”We have a goal: from good to great,” UCLA coach Steve Alford said. ”We’re not great yet, but we knew we were good coming in. We took a pretty good step toward being a little bit better than good.”

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ANNIVERSARY GAME

No. 5 Duke (8-1) has a tough game Tuesday night, facing No. 21 Florida at Madison Square Garden.

On Saturday, the Blue Devils will play UNLV at the new T-Mobile Arena along The Strip in Las Vegas. The game will be the first meeting between the teams since Duke knocked off undefeated UNLV in the 1991 Final Four on its way to the first of five national championships for coach Mike Krzyzewski.

The Runnin’ Rebels (5-3) are rebuilding in their first season under Marvin Menzies, and Duke is finally getting healthy, so it probably won’t come close to living up to that epic game 25 years ago.

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BIG SATURDAY

Saturday has a big slate of games involving ranked teams, including No. 3 Kansas vs. Nebraska, No. 11 Xavier vs. Utah, No. 16 Butler against No. 23 Cincinnati, No. 17 Wisconsin at Marquette, and No. 20 Arizona at Missouri.

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WATCH LIST

Teams to keep an eye on this week for possible entry into the poll next week:

Southern California. The Trojans (8-0) are still undefeated and have one game this week, against Pepperdine.

Ohio State. The Buckeyes (7-1) played No. 14 Virginia close last week, with Florida Atlantic and UConn coming up this week.

Florida State. The Seminoles (7-1) make a run at being ranked by winning all three of their games this week, a schedule that includes No. 21 Florida on Sunday.

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