K is a heck of a coach, but you have to consider the talent he gets year in, year out. How many more NCs do you think JC would have had if he had the talent K has had at dook all these years? He's had what, 4 to 5 times the number of Burger-AAs over the years. Roy is another one who I think sometimes has done less with more talent, while JC and now KO have done more with less. For years I've wanted someone to put together some statistical data on what coaches have achieved most or least based on some combination of the following:
Take the combined total ranking of a program's (or coach's) recruits and calculate in the total # wins, total number of tournament wins, their plus or minus results against their tournament seeding (+ & - as in did they perform better or worse than their NCAA Seeding), NBA Drafted players and their draft positions against their composite HS rankings, etc.
I have little doubt that Roy and even K would get dinged due to some early bounces from the NCAA tourney as high seeds, highly ranked recruits that never made it to the NBA and were complete flops, etc.
Now to K's, Roys, and why don't we add Self to the list, credit they're all big time recruiters that stock the shelf with blue-chip recruits year after year and rack up tons of regular season Ws year in, year out.
I just don't think these 3 have been great big-game coaches, especially when it comes to making adjustments. K did a great job early on going deep with okay talent, but since the early 90s, he's been loading up with some of the best. He does a great job of building confidence in his kids, and might be the best there is at that part of the game. He was clearly out-coached by JC twice. Now don't get me wrong. He's come up huge a whole bunch of times, though based on the talent he's had, I would have expected him to have even more NCs under his belt. Though to his credit he does lead all coaches in the after disappointing loss hugging and crying category.
As some have already mentioned, I'd love to see some Coach K vs KO F-4 or Championship match-ups over the next few years. I like our chances with KO at the helm and the talent he's recruiting.
As much as I wouldn't want UConn and KO to turn away a boat load of Burger-AAs, I'm more than pleased with our Huskies being stocked with talented 3 and 4 year players who are good at taking down teams stocked with a bunch of 1 and/or 2-and-done's. Seems the talent is being spread out throughout the collage hoops landscape, though a few teams seem to load up annually such as Dook, UNC, UK, KU to name a few...maybe you can add Zona to that list as well.
Getting back to the topic at hand, K is among the best there is, but I doubt he'd be nearly as successful if he didn't have to over-the-top talent he's been getting over the years and lately that level is getting even better. With the talent he's getting, he should be making -4 every year and winning it more than he is. Just my opinion, and not any sour grapes. I'm proud of how JC and KO have built our program and wouldn't want it any other way. I'd love to see KO get more of his Plan-A recruits, which he might be experiencing in the 2016 class and I'd love to see us get back into a P-5 conference. With that said, I hope we get to see KO KO K and his dookies in the NCAA Tourney over the next few years.
