Ranking the Big East coaches thru 1/11

[nelsonmuntz]

My ranking of coaches based on 2022-2023 performance only.

1) Shaka Smart (Marquette) - Marquette was picked to finish 9th by the Big East coaches. It is amazing how fast Smart took a tired program run by a lousy coach and turned it into an NCAA Tournament team that no one wants to play in March.

2) Sean Miller (Xavier) - undefeated in conference, all three OOC losses are quality (although Indiana is fading). While everyone knew there was talent on this team, Miller took a sloppy team that expected to lose and has turned it into an offensive machine. He also found Souley Boum, who may turn out to be one of the biggest transfer pickups of the offseason. He may be one of the biggest scumbags in college basketball, but he knows how to coach.

3) Ed Cooley (Providence) - Preseason #5, so they were expected to be a tournament caliber team. I am not sure how good they really are, but regardless, once again Cooley has assembled a NCAA Tournament caliber team from the flotsam and jetsam on the Transfer Portal. It is amazing how he does this.

4) Danny Hurley (UConn) - Big improvement in the offense, which I will give him credit for. Did well in the transfer portal, and has his team in sync. All he needs is more wins over good Big East teams.

5) Shaheen Holloway (Seton Hall) - Defense looks great, and offense is showing signs of life. Talent level is not great, but there are a lot of positive signs.

6) Greg McDermott (Creighton) - Preseason Top 10 in the country to a team just a few games above .500. They played a tough schedule and were missing their best player for a few games, but the season is not turning out as they hoped.

7) Mike Anderson (St. Johns) - I think his 40 minutes of hell style has aged out a little. The team looks out of control on both ends, and takes a lot of terrible shots, and that doesn't work in the age of analytics. SJU has some talent (Soriano and Jones, among others) and should be better. That is on the coach.

8) Thad Matta (Butler) - It is uncomfortable to watch Matta coach Butler. He looks like death warmed over, and seems exhausted on the sideline. The cupboard was pretty bare and he has brought in a few players, but the team has not looked great this season other than a non-conference win over Kansas State that got a lot more impressive in the last few weeks.

9) Tony Stubblefield (Depaul) - He is not a bad game coach, and his teams seem to get better over the course of the season, but he is in year 2 and he has a roster that would be weak in the A10. Depaul has no talent, and that is on the coach. He is in Chicago, there is no excuse for not having some talent.

10) Kyle Neptune (Villanova) - Preseason #3 in the Big East Coaches Poll, and he is 2-4 with 5 OOC losses and just lost to Depaul. He is just not a big time Head Coach. Should have stayed at Fordham. It will be interesting to see how much rope Villanova gives him.

11) Patrick Ewing (Georgetown) - there are not words to describe how much of a catastrophic failure Ewing has been at Georgetown. He is in a class of bad coach all by himself.

 

[ValleyGuy]

you basically just listed the big east standings but by coach

 

[Rakkasan]

Tend to agree with your thoughts on all. Few additions:

--Shaka: His teams always look good OOC and January. And then February comes. Outside of VCU, his Texas teams and his MU team last year never made it out of the first round. It's January, 2023 and his team looks really good...

--Matta: Every time they show him in the huddle his says things like, "Please play hard." I think he hates this team.

--Nova: He is a relatively inexperienced head coach in a league that generally grants experience through losses.

 

[bendm]

you basically just listed the big east standings but by coach

well he did specify he was ranking them based on this year only so the biggest factor is going to be the team's record

 

[LIuconn]

Would like to see this by salary. Who is getting their worth

 

[gtcam]

Did well in the transfer portal, and has his team in sync. All he needs is more wins over good Big East teams.

Please explain the portal statement - he's 50% on the portal success and that's it with Diarra and JoeyC as intended backups. Neither Newton or Alleyne have earned or deserved starter minutes which they were brought to Storrs to do
Every NBE coach needs is more wins over good NBE teams
But totally agree that, at this point, DH is solidly at #4 but Halloway is sneaking up.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Tend to agree with your thoughts on all. Few additions:

--Shaka: His teams always look good OOC and January. And then February comes. Outside of VCU, his Texas teams and his MU team last year never made it out of the first round. It's January, 2023 and his team looks really good...

--Matta: Every time they show him in the huddle his says things like, "Please play hard." I think he hates this team.

--Nova: He is a relatively inexperienced head coach in a league that generally grants experience through losses.

Shaka - Fun fact: Lehman Brothers was still one of the most respected investment banks in the world the last time Texas has made it out of the first weekend of the Tournament in 2008. Barnes wasn't exactly lighting the world on fire at Texas either. Texas could just be a deceptively difficult place to win.

Matta may hate his team. Or may feel as miserable as he looks physically and have nothing to say.

If is hard to have a worse first season than Neptune. He started the season ranked 16, and he is 8-9 now having just lost to Depaul.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Did well in the transfer portal, and has his team in sync. All he needs is more wins over good Big East teams.

Please explain the portal statement - he's 50% on the portal success and that's it with Diarra and JoeyC as intended backups. Neither Newton or Alleyne have earned or deserved starter minutes which they were brought to Storrs to do
Every NBE coach needs is more wins over good NBE teams
But totally agree that, at this point, DH is solidly at #4 but Halloway is sneaking up.

Newton, Diarra, Alleyne and Joey C are all solid contributors. I think that was nice work on the portal. Were you expecting Lebron?

The point about BE wins was that Hurley had a great OOC and has a solid win over a good Creighton team. All that is missing is a few more quality wins over BE teams. UConn has PC, Xavier and Marquette coming up in the next few weeks at home. We will see what happens.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

I would put Ewing, Neptune and Anderson in jeopardy of losing their jobs. I know Ewing has a huge buyout, but how much will Georgetown take? I would pull the plug on Neptune at the end of the season unless Villanova wants to have a full scale rebuilding project. Anderson is more of a comparison issue. He used to be better at this, and generally when an old coach starts to decline, it doesn’t get better.

 

[Hurleyman216]

Still kinda early for this. The early season BE schedule has been very lopsided. We’ve played literally all the best BE teams on the road and some teams like PC haven’t played a single tough road game. There’s a decent chance that PC loses 3 or 4 of their next 6 games starting with their game at Creighton today. We have at Creighton and at Villanova which should be tough, but we should be winning the majority of our games from here out. The BE will likely come down to whether Marquette or X can steal an away win against us. I don’t expect PC to be in the running 2-3 weeks from now, but I didn’t think they’d finish first last year either.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Stubblefield is an easy coach to root for. He doesn't need to start landing McD's AA's. Just go find the second tier Chicago high school kids that don't have 20 offers, and then work the Transfer Portal for Chicago kids that went MVC or MAC or lower P6 and are homesick. There must be enough kids like that to make Depaul competitive, at least compared to the dreck that he currently has.

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Anyone have additional thoughts on this ranking?

 

[gtcam]

No
Lets wait til Wednesday

 

[nelsonmuntz]

Which of those coaches is Hurley a better coach than when there is 2 minutes left in a tie game? I have Ewing, and that's it. I don't like Neptune, but he doesn't make the kind of mistakes Hurley makes.

 

[firstnline]

Which of those coaches is Hurley a better coach than when there is 2 minutes left in a tie game? I have Ewing, and that's it. I don't like Neptune, but he doesn't make the kind of mistakes Hurley makes.

In tight games Hurley is a deer in the headlghts. Period.

 

[3rdbass]

This thread hasn't aged well with McDermott below Hurley. LOL!

 

[Hi-Low]

This thread hasn't aged well with McDermott below Hurley. LOL!

McDermott no genius just decided not to guard Ajax and it worked. If Hawk's toe was an 1/2 inch shorter we had OT on the road and who knows. Not saying DH coached a good game and he should have taken Ajax out sooner at end, but team as a whole didn't shoot well today.

 

[EnochRoot]

McDermott no genius just decided not to guard Ajax and it worked. If Hawk's toe was an 1/2 inch shorter we had OT on the road and who knows. Not saying DH coached a good game and he should have taken Ajax out sooner at end, but team as a whole didn't shoot well today.

Hawk's got to know to get his feet behind the line there. No excuse for that considering the time he had left.

 

[AntG168]

Which of those coaches is Hurley a better coach than when there is 2 minutes left in a tie game? I have Ewing, and that's it. I don't like Neptune, but he doesn't make the kind of mistakes Hurley makes.

Neptune used all of his timeouts by the 8min mark in our game against them.