CBSSports: ranking college basketball coaches of all time | The Boneyard

CBSSports: ranking college basketball coaches of all time

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BigErnMcCracken said:
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It was actually better than I thought.

I think Roy is overrated and the number snow how ineffiicient Dean Smith was with his title to FF ratio.

Love seeing squid #9.
 
Only one i’d argue with is Bob Knight. Maybe could make an argument with Roy as well.
 
I think Bob Knight and Roy are overrated. I can agree with Wooden, K, and probably Dean Smith.
 
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the thing keeping calhoun from #3 is the lack of final fours.

but those final 4 losses are the hardest to get over so if you're gonna lose i don't mind going out in the sweet 16 or elite 8 instead...then again if you are making the final 4 as frequently as duke and unc the losses arent as hard to get over
 
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I'd put Calhoun behind Wooden, K, and Rupp. Williams shouldn't be on the list since we are talking colleges, which require kids to you actually attend classes, submit paper etc, which rules on UNC.

Boeheim and Calipari?
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IMO.. JC was much more efficient in his "at bats" in the Tournament.-That is to say FF appearances and the % converted to NCs vs Dean/Roy.. Was a great Program builder.

Always thought Dean/Roy underachieved with the talent they had on their rosters when the bright light were on at Tournament time.

Am I biased on this particular point? Yes
 
Honorable mentions:

John Thompson - A huge social force whose presence is still missed. He also coached some pretty good defenses.

Jay Wright - still time for another couple of titles to join the pantheon. No college coach has had a bigger impact on the style of the game in the last 15 years.

Phog Allen - built the sport of basketball. the fact that freaking Kansas is a blue blood is because of Allen. That is impressive all by itself.

Denny Crum - forced the southern schools to really integrate their teams when he started kicking their butts. Also won 2 championships.


Best Coaches without titles:

John Chaney - to this day, no one can play a matchup zone as well as Chaney's Temple teams.

Gene Keady - great up tempo coach, and won without star players. It is amazing how much Purdue dominated the Big 10 during Keady's tenure with I believe only two first round draft picks over almost 20 years.

Mark Few - Incredible what he has built in Spokane.
 
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It's a highly subjective list. It is what it is. Numbers give you Wooden, but was he really that good, or a great cheat? I don't know.

As a teacher of the game of basketball, Bobby Knight might deserve #1. Not a great recruiter, often beat teams that had better players. Never saw any high major team play better fundamental basketball than his teams.

Calhoun lacked consistency. We've had this argument before, but getting in to the tournament every year and going deep often is a barometer of success. National Championships are more arbitrary, requiring everything to go right over a short span. Conference titles matter too. With some better luck (AJ Price injury), Calhoun's numbers would look better. He deserves much credit for the building aspect that Smith and Williams did not face (although KU was on probation from Brown when Roy arrived). That is the best argument for moving Calhoun up.

Glad to see Iba on the list, he is too often forgotten.
 
Roy at #3 is egregious, great offensive coach but he was at 2 of the already bluest of the blue blood schools...Boeheim is too high, PItino is too low...

Calhoun is the most underrated coach of all-time and #6 or even a spot or two lower is where I expected him because he just doesn't get the national credit he deserves. Taking my blue shades off Calhoun should be #3 behind only Wooden and K. He's the only one who truly took a regional cow pasture program/school and turned them into one of the few elite programs and brands in the country culminating in 3 national championships and having a major hand in a 4th. Pitino should be around #5, he's an amazing basketball coach. John Thompson and Jay Wright aren't even in the honorable mentions which means they have 21 coaches ranked ahead of them which is ridiculous.
 
HuskyHawk said:
It's a highly subjective list. It is what it is. Numbers give you Wooden, but was he really that good, or a great cheat? I don't know.

As a teacher of the game of basketball, Bobby Knight might deserve #1. Not a great recruiter, often beat teams that had better players. Never saw any high major team play better fundamental basketball than his teams.

Calhoun lacked consistency. We've had this argument before, but getting in to the tournament every year and going deep often is a barometer of success. National Championships are more arbitrary, requiring everything to go right over a short span. Conference titles matter too. With some better luck (AJ Price injury), Calhoun's numbers would look better. He deserves much credit for the building aspect that Smith and Williams did not face (although KU was on probation from Brown when Roy arrived). That is the best argument for moving Calhoun up.

Glad to see Iba on the list, he is too often forgotten.
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Iba won two titles right after World War II. The country had a few different priorities at the time, and many college age men did not get back until mid and late 1946 and later. It was also just a different sport back then. I don't want to give Iba too much credit for those titles.

Izzo probably belongs in the Top 10.
 
nelsonmuntz said:
Iba won two titles right after World War II. The country had a few different priorities at the time, and many college age men did not get back until mid and late 1946 and later. It was also just a different sport back then. I don't want to give Iba too much credit for those titles.

Izzo probably belongs in the Top 10.
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Calhoun is the most underrated and Izzo is the most overrated
 
Something to ponder about Calhoun. What if he had gotten his start at UConn at a younger age? He wasn't hired at UConn until he was 44 years old. Krzyzewski started at Duke when he was 33. Roy Williams started at Kansas when he was 38. Bob Knight started at Indiana when he was 31. Dean Smith started at UNC when he was 30. Boeheim turned 32 early in his first year at Syracuse.

All those coaches were at places they could win big at and win national championships at much earlier than Calhoun. So while Calhoun started his coaching career at Northeastern at 30, he spent 14 seasons there. He won a lot of games there, especially after the first 7 years, but he wasn't going to go to Final Fours or win national championships at Northeastern.

Give Calhoun another 6-12 years at UConn and how much more success would he have had? More Final Fours and more championships? Winning begets winning so I think his success at UConn would have started earlier and continued longer if he started there when he was younger.

Which begs another question. Why didn't his college coaching career at UConn start earlier? Many reasons. First off, he didn't graduate AIC until he was 26. He didn't start coaching in college until he was 30. He really didn't start winning a lot at Northeastern until he was 37. It also seems to me that he was hurt by not going to college at an established power. He had no real connections coming from D2 AIC. Most of the other top coaches in his era had connections from their college playing careers. Krzyzewski played for Knight at Army which helped his career get going. Williams played for Smith at UNC. Boeheim played at Syracuse which helped his career get going.
 
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CardiacAndre7 said:
Saying what if Calhoun started at UConn earlier doesn’t do anything to an argument. What if Wooden didn’t coach Kareem and Bill? Doesn’t matter, it happened.
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This is a basketball message board. We talk about what if’s. If hypotheticals give you the sadzz, the internet is probably not the best place for you.
 
CardiacAndre7 said:
Saying what if Calhoun started at UConn earlier doesn’t do anything to an argument. What if Wooden didn’t coach Kareem and Bill? Doesn’t matter, it happened.
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Are you referencing my post? Mine wasn't an argument. Just kind of a question as food for thought as compared to the other great coaches of his generation who were all at high level programs at a much younger age.
 
HooperScooper said:
Are you referencing my post? Mine wasn't an argument. Just kind of a question as food for thought as compared to the other great coaches of his generation who were all at high level programs at a much younger age.
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No no not at all, I was talking about Nelson’s.
 
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RedDog said:
Where Duke's Mike Krzyzewski ranks among the top men's college basketball coaches of all time - CBSSports.com

Calhoun ranked 6
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No way i put Squid and Nose pick ahead of Slick Rick and i have Rupp and Dean ahead of Knight. Calhoun and Knight are a toss up. I can see having either or ahead of the other. That being said no one in their right mind puts Calhoun #1 but he is without a doubt the #1 program build and has the greatest run to a title (2011) of all time. Prove me wrong.
 
HooperScooper said:
Something to ponder about Calhoun. What if he had gotten his start at UConn at a younger age? He wasn't hired at UConn until he was 44 years old. Krzyzewski started at Duke when he was 33. Roy Williams started at Kansas when he was 38. Bob Knight started at Indiana when he was 31. Dean Smith started at UNC when he was 30. Boeheim turned 32 early in his first year at Syracuse.

All those coaches were at places they could win big at and win national championships at much earlier than Calhoun. So while Calhoun started his coaching career at Northeastern at 30, he spent 14 seasons there. He won a lot of games there, especially after the first 7 years, but he wasn't going to go to Final Fours or win national championships at Northeastern.

Give Calhoun another 6-12 years at UConn and how much more success would he have had? More Final Fours and more championships? Winning begets winning so I think his success at UConn would have started earlier and continued longer if he started there when he was younger.

Which begs another question. Why didn't his college coaching career at UConn start earlier? Many reasons. First off, he didn't graduate AIC until he was 26. He didn't start coaching in college until he was 30. He really didn't start winning a lot at Northeastern until he was 37. It also seems to me that he was hurt by not going to college at an established power. He had no real connections coming from D2 AIC. Most of the other top coaches in his era had connections from their college playing careers. Krzyzewski played for Knight at Army which helped his career get going. Williams played for Smith at UNC. Boeheim played at Syracuse which helped his career get going.
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Huh so Reggie Lewis must've saw something in Calhoun to play for him at Northeastern. Don't know the story of Reggie Lewis recruiting someone fill me in please. Cause after that JC made run in Tournament and got to coach in this tiny fishbowl called Storrs.
 
CardiacAndre7 said:
No, when you rank coaches like this, you go by the facts. It’s pointless to add fake variables.
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Why? Why can't one recognize that, based on results, John Wooden stands by himself, and at the same ask the unanswerable hypothetical as to whether Wooden would have been likely to have had the same success at UConn that Calhoun had?
 
businesslawyer said:
Why? Why can't one recognize that, based on results, John Wooden stands by himself, and at the same ask the unanswerable hypothetical as to whether Wooden would have been likely to have had the same success at UConn that Calhoun had?
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Because it’s silly and never ending. On the flip, what if Calhoun never got Rip Hamilton? Many dominoes and scenarios would be different and we wouldn’t have 4 chips. But he did and we do have that. It’s just a weird thing to do to try and elevate JC and at the same time relegate these other coaches.
 
CardiacAndre7 said:
Because it’s silly and never ending. On the flip, what if Calhoun never got Rip Hamilton? Many dominoes and scenarios would be different and we wouldn’t have 4 chips. But he did and we do have that. It’s just a weird thing to do to try and elevate JC and at the same time relegate these other coaches.
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Couldn't disagree more. I agree that your level of "what ifs" is silly. Every person's, let alone coach's, career is shaped by hundreds of events. But when you rank coaches, you also have to recognize that college basketball programs aren't video games. You can't take control of Rider and make it a perennial top ten program. What Urban Meyer accomplished at Utah is probably more impressive than what he accomplished at Florida. So the only way to fairly measure coaches is not just to look at the bottom lines, but to look at where they accomplished it.
 
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