We haven't paid too much attention to ESPN's ranking of coaches for a couple of reasons. First, how can you take anything seriously which ranks Roy Williams at #16 based on speculation about the UNC scandal? And second, it's hard to understand how you can put Coach K at #4.
ESPN has Tom Izzo at #3, which means Rick Pitino is at #2 and John Calipari at #1, unless there's some contrarian behind the wheel.
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(We got that almost right, but we weren't kidding when we said that we weren't paying very close attention: we saw later that the entire list had been published and Billy Donovan was ranked #1. See below).
But let's consider: why is it that Williams, after a brilliant career at Kansas and an excellent second act at UNC, is marked down for allegations about him which have not been proved, while John Calipari gets a pass on having two Final Fours vacated?
True, no one tied him to that, but no one has tied Williams directly to the UNC scandal either. It's just one strange dude (Rashad McCants) saying so.
It should be one way or the other, but not both.
It's also worth mentioning that when Calipari was at Memphis, his team was far ahead of the rest of the C-USA. That's partly to his credit, but it's also true that the league was not a basketball powerhouse. So wouldn't you weigh that in as well? Does the NIT year count against him?
At Memphis, Calipari finished with a four-year run of 33, 33, 38 and 33 win seasons. That works out to 34.2 wins a season.
It dips a bit at Kentucky, where, with better competition, Calipari has averaged 30.4 wins.
That's like complaining about a batter dipping from .397 to .390, but still: Calipari gets the benefit of dominating a weak conference for several years. Some might argue that the SEC isn't that much better.
As for Tom Izzo, we admire him immensely, but since 2005, he's had 22, 23 and 19 win seasons. He's superb - we rank him just slightly behind Coach K - but those are significant dips.
Same for Pitino. He's had 21, 24 and 20 win seasons since 2005. He's a tremendous coach, there's no question about that. But his teams can be a bit up and down. They have a magnificent resilience, but the fact is the team has to go down before it can show that resilience.
And Krzyzewski? He had a significant dip in 2006-07, winning just 22 games. That season was book-ended by 32 and 28 win seasons.
He's gotten some criticism for early departures from the tournament, losing in recent years to Mercer, Lehigh and VCU.
But he won the national title in 2010, would've repeated in 2011 if Kyrie Irving hadn't hurt his foot, and would have made a deeper run in 2013 if Ryan Kelly and Seth Curry hadn't had to deal with injuries.
He's averaged 29 wins per season since 2005, and he's done so while also doing a brilliant job with the Olympic team.
If you can factor in unproven allegations to drop Roy Williams to 16, then you might also consider factoring in Duke's higher academic requirements in K's situation. Duke was very interested in Eric Bledsoe, for instance, but had to back off because of his academics.
He got into Kentucky with no problem.
So as mentioned above, we didn't see that Donovan had already been named #1. So what about Billy The (No Longer A) Kid?
Well, he's done a tremendous job at Florida. Before he got there, it was a basketball wasteland and he's made it a consistent national power, including back-to-back titles. He's made four Final Fours and his Gators lost one title game. And he's done it at a school which might not care if the team played at all if football could somehow go from September to April. He's won six SEC regular season titles and four SEC tournaments.
That's a bit more modest than Krzyzewski's 11 Final Fours, four championships, 13 ACC championships, 12 regular season championships, and if you toss in the Olympic titles, well, it's hard to find anyone close to what K has accomplished. Certainly not Donovan. And keep in mind that Donovan - and for that matter Calipari - coach in a league that, from top to bottom, is far tougher than the SEC. It's not even close in general and the SEC has rarely even closed the gap significantly.
Put it this way: what do you think Krzyzewski would have done at Kentucky, where he could have signed anyone he wanted and would have crushed just about everyone in the conference?
It doesn't take much thought to realize he would have dominated the league and, just like at Duke, would have been a consistent Final Four coach.
It's amazing what Kryzewski has accomplished at Duke and often with lesser talent, not to mention managing the national program on the side. It doesn't take away from the others to say we don't think they could possibly have done what they've done if they were coaching Duke.
2013-14 | 2012-13 | 2011-12 | 2010-11 | 2009-10 | 2008-09 | 2007-08 | 2006-07 | 2005-06 | Average | |
Donovan | 36-3 | 29-8 | 26-11 | 29-8 | 21-13 | 25-11 | 24-12 | 35-5 | 33-6 | 28.6 |
Krzyzewski | 26-9 | 30-6 | 27-7 | 32-5 | 35-5 | 30-7 | 28-6 | 22-11 | 32-4 | 29.1 |
Calipari | 29-11 | 21-12 | 38-2 | 29-9 | 35-3 | 33-4 | 38-2 | 33-4 | 33-4 | 32.1 |
Pitino | 31-6 | 30-10 | 25-10 | 20-13 | 31-6 | 27-9 | 24-10 | 21-13 | 33-5 | 26.8 |
Izzo | 29-9 | 27-9 | 29-8 | 19-15 | 28-9 | 31-7 | 27-9 | 23-12 | 22-12 | 26.1 |