August Content: College Basketball Coaching Tiers
S: “Pinnacle”
Dan Hurley, Bill Self
The only active coaches* with more than one title. Winning speaks for itself.
S*: “Would be Pinnacle if not for Stripper Incident”
Rick Pitino
Also technically has more than one title, but it got taken away because of…well, you know. For that reason, Pitino had to go into Basketball Exile for a while until he re-emerged at Iona, and now at St. John’s, where he is in rebuilding mode.
A+: “A Title Away”
Mark Few, Scott Drew, Matt Painter, Kelvin Sampson
Scott Drew would be in the Pinnacle group with another title. He always has a good team, but is making first weekend exits in the tournament a little too much of a regularity. Few and Sampson are in the same situation of building unheralded teams up into national contenders, and only need a title to show for their hard work before they move up a level. One title at Houston or Gonzaga would equal two at Kansas, no?
Painter is here because he finally broke through to the Final Four and has Purdue in contention seemingly every year.
A: “Shiny, New, and Hopeful”
Nate Oats, Dusty May
Both young-ish coaches with Final Fours on their resume; Oats came hot out of the gates at Bama and hasn’t slowed down for the past four seasons. Dusty May is getting his big break with Blue this season. Either guy could move up or down a tier over the next couple of seasons.
A-: “Excited but Would Definitely Trade for Any of the Above”
Present-day Tom Izzo, Present-day John Calipari, Bruce Pearl, Mick Cronin, Eric Musselman, Shaka Smart
2000s Izzo and 2010s Cal would definitely rank higher than this, but these two HOF’ers have fallen off in recent years. The others are holding steady with either 1 Final Four appearance coupled with strong regular season success, or lots of Elite Eights (Muss).
Fans of these teams love their guy, but if you offered a straight up trade for any of the coaches in the higher tiers, they would at least strongly consider it.
B+: “A Solid B+”
Jon Scheyer, Hubert Davis, Jim Larranaga, Tony Bennett, Brad Underwood, Tommy Lloyd, TJ Otzelberger, Rick Barnes, Greg McDermott
These guys have either been solid B+’s for a long time now (Larranaga, Barnes, Underwood, McDermott), are moving up as relatively new coaching faces (Scheyer, Davis, Lloyd, Otz), or trending down the list (Tony Bennet, time to win another game in the tournament, my friend!).
B: “Up and Comers + Hang-Arounders”
Kyle Smith, Thad Matta, Sean Miller, Shaheen Holloway, Present-day Chris Beard, Jamie Dixon, Mark Pope
This tier is made up of two groups:
A) Guys who are re-establishing themselves after previous stops ended poorly, either because they wore out their welcome (Matta, Dixon), broke some rules (Miller), or other stuff much worse (Beard).
B) New guys who have made waves at smaller schools who are trying to prove themselves at big programs (Smith, Holloway, Pope). This group has more potential for upward mobility.
There are tons of good coaches that I think could fit into the next tier down, and many in the last two tiers could arguably be moved around. What do you think? Feel free to let me know (nicely)!