I'm as guilty as anyone of coaching hot takes - though I like to think that mine are bit more measured once the electrons form words on this blog - so I figured why not put them all together and rank every coach in the country.
Because that's stupid, and as obsessed as I am with college basketball, I couldn't speak intelligently about all 351 DI coaches, that's why. But what I absolutely can do is speak intelligently enough about 30 or 40 and then fake my way through another 30 or so and rank all the high-major coaches.
I'll be ranking the six power conferences (sorry to the AAC and MVC) and select coaches in other conferences like Mark Few or Gregg Marshall (sorry to Tulane's Ed Conroy and UTEP's Tim Floyd). The principles of this will follow closely to Bill Simmons annual NBA trade value columns but with a few twists for this subject. The main considerations:
- Assume this is for the next eight years, giving each coach long enough to have two full recruiting cycles and the chance to coach them all.
- Assume the coach is taking over an average program with average talent. That means that a coach who does a better job of maximizing talent will probably be better in the first few years while the stronger recruiters will shine later on.
- Assume that every coach makes it to the end of his eight year tenure, but factor in age as appropriate. Coach K is great, but how great will he be at age 75?
- The end goal for every hypothetical program is to win a title. In reality, some schools, even ones in major conferences, will be happy with a guy that makes the tournament sometimes and keeps the program clean. The basic criteria is who would win the most games, but coaches who have definitively shown that they can't build a contender will rank very low.
- Last five years' kenpom ranks are in parenthesis.
Anyway, on with the Hot Takes while they're still sizzling.
Tier I - Why Bother?
84. Brian Gregory - Georgia Tech (101, 177, 102, 109, 92) - I don't know if Brian Gregory is the worst coach in major college basketball. It's probably unfair to rank the guys at the very bottom of the list because a) they have somewhat indiscernible resumes and b) they're all products (victims?) of their circumstances. But it's an ordered list that no one really cares about so someone gets the indignity of being last. Gregory's hiring by Georgia Tech was puzzling at the time. He had eight years at Dayton, a program with good tradition and great support for its level, and only once in his final six years managed a winning A-10 record or NCAA tournament berth. Gregory is now 16-41 in ACC games and recruiting is mostly non-existent. This should be an open job in the spring.
83. Oliver Purnell - Depaul (195-142-175-198-149) - Purnell sort of became a joke before leaving Clemson for making the tournament but not being able to win a game, which is really kind of amazing when you consider we're talking about Clemson basketball, owners of the 0-57 mark in Chapel Hill. He'd gotten them to the level where making the dance and finishing above .500 in conference was ordinary. Then he left for Depaul and things have been...bad, for both sides. Now Depaul isn't the easiest job, especially in the old Big East, but you probably can't lose to Lehigh by double digits in your fifth year on the job. Purnell has been a successful coach before, unlike some of the others ahead of him, but at age 61, would you want him building your program?
82. Andy Kennedy - Ole Miss (79-81-36-84-35) - Kennedy has coached in a power conference for a decade and made the field of 68 once, as a #12 seed. The Marshall Henderson Experience was mildly fun for a minute, but I'm not sure it's a good thing when the most memorable part of your decade on the job is taking the a huge problem child and giving him the ultimate green light. Kennedy has somehow managed to never have a losing record, which probably counts for something, and has some outside chance to make a run at a tournament bid this year, but if things haven't worked out in a decade, I don't want to bet on that coach.
81. Ernie Kent - Washington State (13-40-157-140-177) - Washington State hired this guy off the street! OK, he coached for a long time at Oregon before his firing in 2010 and had some teams there that were quite good, but as far as I can tell, he didn't coach at all in the four years since his departure in Eugene. That's a long time to be out of the game, and at age 60, Kent's best days are likely behind him. He was 16 games under .500 in conference at Oregon in 13 years, so you probably know what you're getting.
79. Greg McDermott - Creighton (94-35-18-24-114) - Greg McDermott went 18-46 in Big XII games at Iowa State. He also didn't recruit his son to come play for him until he landed at Creighton, thinking Doug McDermott might not be good enough to hack it in the Big XII. That son went on to score approximately 1,890,725 points in his collegiate career. And this was a guy who played in Greg McDermott's driveway! Pass.
78. Bruce Weber - Kansas State (19-82-21-43-85) - Weber inherited the roster of an historically great team at Illinois from Bill Self, guiding it to the National Championship game in his second season. Things looked great. But after making the tournament his first four seasons in Champaign, Weber missed it three out of his last five and jumped ship to K-State before he was forced to walk the plank. He's made the tournament his first two years in Manhattan with Frank Martin's players, but this year hasn't started off well. That's a lot of tournaments and tournament wins for someone so low on this list, but Weber is down here because of how heavily criticized his recruiting was at Illinois. Unable to mine talent-rich Chicago, Weber had too many marginal players on the roster. He might well be a good enough game coach and motivator to make some tournaments, but he's not building a roster that competes for a championship, so what's the point.
77. Herb Sendek - Arizona State (137-231-68-45-78) - NC State fans hated Herb, back when all he did was make the tournament as their head coach. As penance they had to sit through the Sid Lowe era. Sendek jumped to Tempe fresh off his fifth straight NCAA tournament appearance, and things haven't gone so well in his new home. Now in his ninth season, he's made just two tournaments and won one game while there. That one win came in a year where Sendek had two NBA players on the roster (James Harden and Jeff Ayres), but unfortunately for Sun Devils' fans, he doesn't often recruit that level of talent. I'll give him a bit of credit for moving away from the dreadfully slow Princeton style a bit in recent years.
76. Tubby Smith - Texas Tech (58-47-26-83-189) - Smith won a National Championship his first year at Kentucky, but that was with a loaded roster left to him by Rick Pitino. While he was never as successful after that as the UK fanbase hoped or expected, his teams still finished in the top 10 six times in 10 seasons. It could have been much worse -- see e.g. Gillespie, Billy. His Minnesota teams, though, never challenged in the conference, finishing .500 or below in league play in each of his six seasons. Smith is a fine coach, but at age 63, he has a track record that suggests he won't recruit nearly well enough to transform a program into a contender
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