The NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament is quickly approaching as you no doubt are aware if you’ve spent any time here at MSF lately. This site gets completely overtaken by March Madness and college basketball talk during the third month of the year…and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
With that being the case, it seemed more than reasonable that we take a few moments to analyze the most important individuals for the upcoming month. No, I’m not talking about John Wall, Evan Turner, or any of the players; this is college basketball, where any talk of “most important individual” begins and ends with the coaches (who, by way of their massive egos and general self-aggrandizing propensities, wouldn’t have it any other way.)
Today’s discussion will center around one simple question: who is the best active coach in college basketball?
The way I see it, a case can really only be made for eight men to even be in the discussion. I’ll rank all eight, and then you can agree or disagree in the comment section.
As is always the case for discussions like this one, it is important to lay out some parameters and criteria. For example, it is hard to argue with Mike Krzyzewski’s overall resume, but he has not been nearly as successful recently as Roy Williams (until this year of course). And I don’t want this to simply be an overall resume comparison because that is neither fun nor wholly relevant to today.
So here is my criteria:
- I am the athletic director of School A, which plays in a big conference, has a strong basketball tradition, but has fallen on some relatively hard times.
- I can hire any coach currently coaching in college basketball.
- I will be judged in four years on how well the coach I chose did. If he wins a national championship, I automatically receive a contract extension. If he doesn’t then NCAA Tournament success, conference championships, and program reputation and integrity will be taken into account when determining my fate.
As previously mentioned, I see only eight coaches who can reasonably be included in this discussion. To provide a frame of reference and some important historical data points, here are my top 8 best active coaches in college basketball (listed in no particular order):
Best Active College Basketball Coaches By the Numbers
| Coach (seasons) | Career Wins | Winning % | Conference Titles^ | Sweet 16s | Final 4s | National Titles |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bill Self (17th) | 403 | .733 | 10 | 7 | 1 | 1 |
| Tom Izzo (15th) | 357 | .712 | 5 | 8 | 5 | 1 |
| John Calipari (18th) | 430 | .756 | 12 | 7 | 0* | none |
| Mike Krzyzewski (35th) | 858 | .755 | 11 | 18 | 10 | 3 |
| Roy Williams (22nd) | 609 | .800 | 13 | 13 | 7 | 2 |
| Jim Boeheim (34th) | 825 | .740 | 8 | 14 | 3 | 1 |
| Jim Calhoun (38th) | 821 | .699 | 13 | 11 | 3 | 2 |
| Billy Donovan (16th) | 365 | .702 | 5 | 4 | 3 | 2 |
* – John Calipari has reached two Finals Fours (one with UMass, one with Memphis) but both were later vacated.
^ – Does not include 2009-10 season
[Note: guys who just missed the cut include: Ben Howland (no titles, current struggles); Jay Wright (not enough sustained success); Mark Few (no big conference experience, no titles); and some others. ***Note: See end of post for an addendum to this list.]
Now let’s rank ‘em, going in reverse order because it’s more fun that way.
8. John Calipari, Kentucky
Do I bring my personal biases against John Calipari to this debate? You betcha. But the facts are the facts: Calipari is the only coach out of these eight to never have won a title, and he has also never officially be to a Final Four because both times he went it was vacated.
So while Calipari (thanks to his Worldwide Wes ties) might be the best choice for a quick turnaround, he has not proven that he can lead a champion, and he certainly has not proven that he can build a basketball program in a way that will not get it into trouble down the road. I’ll pass.
7. Jim Calhoun, UCONN
Calhoun is a great coach and is among the small handful of active coaches (Donovan, Williams, Coach K) who have won two National Championships. However, with his current health problems and the accusations of impropriety at UCONN over the years (the story about Stanley Robinson that broke during last year’s NCAA Tournament, the Sweet 16 that was vacated from 1996), I’m a little wary of choosing Calhoun over the other names still there for the taking.
6. Billy Donovan, Florida
Donovan made this groups because he, like Calhoun, is among the very small handful of active coaches who have won two National Championships. Obviously a coach gets huge extra credit in any grading scale for achieving the ultimate goal multiple times. Donovan has also won better than 70% of his games and made another Final Four, so despite his team’s recent struggles, he cannot simply be chalked up as a two-year wonder. He did, however, ride one recruiting class to the majority of his success, so I’d like to see Donovan be a little bit more consistent before I’m ready to choose him over the other terrific names in this discussion.
5. Jim Boeheim, Syracuse
As Boeheim’s career progresses, and as he passes legend after legend on the all-time victories list, he becomes more and more of a legend in his own right. Boeheim’s career numbers are staggering, and the fact that he has done it all while coaching at the same school since 1976 is even more staggering.
Critics of Boeheim will say that he has had three teams this decade make only the NIT and that he has also dealt with NCAA violations (1993). However, Boeheim has taken three teams all the way to the NCAA Championship game and is one Keith Smart jump shot away from having two titles.
It’s a tough call between Donovan and Boeheim, two coaches have proven they can take a program to the top but also that they are not immune from occasional dips. I’ll give Boeheim the edge because of his much more meaty resume and extra credit because of his program’s higher level of success over the last couple of years.
Now it gets really tough…
4. Mike Kryzewski, Duke
If we were ranking the best active college basketball coaches simply by overall resume, Coach K would obviously be #1. He has more wins, more Sweet 16s, more Final Fours, and more titles than any other active coach. Plus, he continues to field competitive teams on a year-in, year-out basis and do so without even a whiff of scandal or impropriety.
But here is my question about Coach K when it comes to comparing him to the others on this list based future results: is he still capable of building a national champion?
Coach K last won a title in 2001. Since then, he has made five Sweet 16s and a Final Four. This is obviously quite good. However, the last three seasons include only one Sweet 16 and an 11-loss 2007 that resulted in a 6th place finish in the ACC. While this year’s Duke team has flown under the radar nationally despite its solid 25-4 record, I don’t hear much talk about them as a title contender.
Obviously you can never go wrong having Mike Kryzewksi lead your basketball program, but I think the three remaining choices are all – at this stage in their respective careers – more optimum choices if we are looking at the hypothetical four year scenario laid out at the beginning of this post.
3. Tom Izzo, Michigan State
There are going to be Duke fans and others who will be incredulous that I have Izzo over Coach K. I understand that. Coach K’s career numbers clearly dwarf Izzo’s and if you go back to the beginning of this decade, there is very little separating them. I give Izzo the edge over Coach K, just like I gave Boeheim the edge over Donovan, because he has had more immediately recent success.
Yes, Izzo’s teams in 2006 and 2007 finished in the middle of the pack of a mediocre Big Ten and made early NCAA Tournament exits. However, those teams built the foundation for the Spartans’ Sweet 16 appearance in 2008 and their run to the NCAA title game in 2009. This year, Izzo once again has a team that, despite an up and down regular season, is seen by many as a threat to pull it all together at the right time and reach another Final Four.
And why not? Izzo’s five Final Four appearances in 15 seasons as a head coach is incredible. It is by far the best ratio of any active coach. Add to all of that his consistency (no NIT appearances since his second season in East Lansing) and the lack of any scandal surrounding his program, and in my mind he’s a better choice today, for the next four years, than Coach K would be.
Oh, and Izzo gets a tiny little bit of extra credit for the fact that the student section at the Breslin Center goes by the awesome, eponymous moniker “The Izzone”. You have to be a badass to have a student section named after you. (But you have to earned it with some sustained success and deep tourney runs, so the “Paint Crew” in West Lafayette still sucks.)
While I would take Izzo over Coach K, he is not quite as good a choice as these next two guys.
2. Roy Williams, North Carolina
Without the Tar Heels’ unexpected and precipitous plunge this season, it would be hard to keep Ol’ Roy out of the top spot. He left Lawrence with the reputation of a guy who “couldn’t win the big one” and has now ended all of that talk by delivering two National Championships to Chapel Hill since 2005. He has also made two Elite 8s and a third Final Four since taking over North Carolina. Additionally, we cannot forget that despite not being able to take Kansas all the way to a championship, he did make two Final Fours (including a title game appearance) during his last two seasons with the Jayhawks.
But what the hell is going on this season?
North Carolina, with a roster full of McDonald’s All-Americans, is 15-14, 4-10 in ACC play, and will miss the Big Dance without an unexpected victory in the ACC Tournament. It is hard to explain what has happened to the Tar Heels, and it has often seemed like even Williams has been at a loss. Still, results are results, and if we’re going to give Williams credit for his wins we must also hold his feet to the fire for a season that, by all accounts, should not be happening.
Williams has another top notch recruiting class coming in next season, led by the highly touted Harrison Barnes, so the expectation is that he and the Tar Heels won’t be down for long. And perhaps we all should have expected more of a drop off for Carolina with so many veterans departing from last year’s title team. If the Tar Heels struggle again next year, it’s reasonable to start worrying. Until then, Williams has earned a mulligan, especially considering the fact that he is one year removed from coaching one of the more dominant NCAA Tournament runs we’ve seen in a long time.
1. Bill Self, Kansas
It must be nice to be a Kansas basketball fan.
The rock-chockers were understandably upset when Roy Williams left after taking the Jayhawks to the title game in 2003, but since then his replacement has won at a ridiculous .824 clip while delivering three Elite 8 appearances and a national title. That he has his team poised for another deep tourney run this year, while Williams endures the toughest season of his career, is what gives Bill Self the edge and the title – at the moment - of best coach in college basketball today.
Self has won everywhere he has been and, like most coaches, needed the foundation of one of college basketball’s most storied traditions to reach his full potential and the promised land. While Self has only won one National Championship thus far, it is important to remember the primary criteria set forth at the beginning of this article. I set out looking for the coach that I’d want for the next four years. I could not find a better choice.
Kansas has lost only 20 games since the start of the 2006-07 season under Self and has not been eliminated before the Elite 8. He also won or tied for the Big 12 regular season title six out of his seven seasons (including this year) in Lawrence. With experience in the backcourt (Sherron Colllins), a terrific big man (Cole Aldrich), and an exciting freshman (Xavier Henry), plus many other talented players, Kansas is rightfully on the short list of NCAA Tournament favorites for this year.
His relative youth, consistency, recruiting prowess, tournament success, and conference dominance make Bill Self the choice. I cannot believe that I am bestowing such an honor on someone who was once the coach in Champaign, but it is hard to argue with his resume and potential.
Now it’s your turn. Chime in with your vote and use the comment section to voice your agreement or disagreement.
Loading ...Update 3/3: Digg commenters brought up a few going points. Gary Williams should have at least been listed in the “just missed it” section. Also, as one commenter asked, where is Rick Pitino?
Pitino’s recent personal troubles notwithstanding, he has certainly proven to worthy of inclusion in this list. To give Pitino his due, I will copy/paste what was written at Digg, because it makes the case quite well…although I don’t agree that he would be a better choice than Self or Boeheim at this stage in all of their respective careers.
It’s complete insanity that Rick Pitino is not on this list.
He has been to the Final Four 5 times. He has taken 3 different teams to the Final Four (no one else has ever done that). He has guided his last two Louisville teams to the Elite Eight. Louisville won the regular season and conference championships last year in the Big East (in what many called the season for a conference ever). He has never had to abandon a Final Four (Calipari had had to do that twice). I would put him on this list ahead of Self, Calhoun, Boeheim and the completely insane Calipari. How could you ever pick a corrupt coach like Calipari to guide your program. If you don’t think that Kentucky is going to get nailed for this the illegality of the 2009 recruiting class… you’re naive. The man is a proven cheater.
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* – John Calipari photo credit: At The Box
* – Tom Izzo photo credit: SlamOnline.com
* – Roy Williams crouching photo credit: CoolSpotters.com
* – Bill Self shocked photo credit: CollegeInsider.com
* – Bill Self cutting down the nets photo credit: SI.com
About Jerod Morris
