Caulton Tudor argues that the ACC collectively makes a mistake when they hire younger coaches. He lists a number of examples over the last few decades including the most recent hires and also previous hires such as Skip Prosser, Oliver Purnell, and several others.
His argument apparently is that ACC schools should try to hire established, big shot coaches who can make the tournament.
However, this has never really been the practice. Stop and ask yourself, who are the best coaches in the history of the conference?
Mike Krzyzewski, Dean Smith, Vic Bubas, Lefty Driesell, Gary Williams, Frank McGuire, Roy Williams, Jim Valvano, Bobby Cremins, Norm Sloan, Terry Holland, Skip Prosser, and Everett Case.
Of these, only Roy Williams, Gary Williams, and McGuire and arguably Driesell could truly have been called big-time coaches before they came to the ACC.
Indeed, Coach K and Smith were both heavily criticized in the beginning of their careers. Art Heyman once said that Smith was widely regarded as the biggest joke around, and nobody understood what Tom Butters had done at Duke when he hired Krzyzewski.
Case was hired out of high school in Indiana, and all he did was to establish the ACC.
In terms of the other coaches he listed, what did Steve Robinson do? What has Leonard Hamilton ever done in the NCAAs?
The ACC has traditionally targeted and hired rising coaches and they've historically done very well at this. Of the new hires, we think that Brownell and Bennett have a chance at becoming very, very successful.
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