Greatest College Basketball Coaches of All Times

Greatest College Basketball Coaches of all times a list by Joe Brackets:

That, along with ESPN.com’s new countdown of the 20 Greatest Football Coaches of All-Time (my list will come out at some point soon), got me thinking about where Pitino and Geno rank among the best of the best when it comes to college basketball coaches.  This wasn’t the easiest list to narrow down, so I decided to take ESPN’s lead and go with a Top 20:

20. John Calipari: Just edges out Lute Olson for this spot because of what he’s been able to do at Kentucky.  A new team every year, yet always in the National Championship discussion, including a title in 2012.  That to go along with Final Four trips with UMass and Memphis.

19. C. Vivian Stringer: A National Championship is the only thing missing from C. Vivian Stringer’s long and illustrious career.  She’s the only coach ever to lead three women’s programs to the Final Four (Cheyney, Iowa, Rutgers) and is one of just four women’s coaches with 900 career wins.

18. Denny Crum: Louisville has three National Championships.  Denny Crum won two of them.  He turned an irrelevant program into a national power, taking the Cardinals to six Final Fours (including one in his first season).  He won 20 or more games 21 times (and 19 four others) and ended up with a career record of 675-295.

17. Don Haskins: Yes, I went old school with this one.  And yes, most people today only know Don Haskins from “Glory Road.”  That 1966 national title was the highlight of a very successful career at UTEP that featured 14 WAC championships and 34 winning seasons in 39 years.  Haskins had a career record of 719-353.

16. Tara VanDerveer: It’s almost hard to believe that the Stanford women have only won two National Championships, and none since 1992.  Because it seems like they’re in the Final Four every year!  They won 18 Pac-10 titles in 20 years from 1989-2009 and have been to 10 Final Fours.  Tara VanDerveer has been at the helm for all of it.  Except 1996, when she took the year off to lead the U.S. Olympic team (which might’ve been the greatest women’s basketball team ever assembled) to gold in Atlanta.  Stanford went to the Final Four that year anyway.

15. Roy Williams: The Dean Smith disciple has kept up the winning tradition at North Carolina, leading the Tar Heels to national titles in 2005 and 2009.  He also took Kansas to the Championship Game in 2003 before leaving to take his dream job.  Not counting his first year at Kansas, when the Jayhawks were ineligible, he’s been to the NCAA Tournament in 23 of 24 seasons.  In the one he didn’t go, North Carolina lost in the final of the NIT.

14. Eddie Sutton: The first coach in history to take four different teams to the NCAA Tournament.  He took that great Arkansas team to the Final Four in 1978 before going twice with Oklahoma State (1995, 2004).  Of course, he was the coach at Kentucky during the scandal, but his legacy is far beyond that.  Like his 800 career wins, one of only eight coaches to reach that mark.

13. Leon Barmore: So, who is Leon Barmore?  Before it was Tennessee and UConn, it was Tennessee and Louisiana Tech.  The head coach of Louisiana Tech’s dynasty in the 1980s was Leon Barmore.  He only won one national title (in 1988), but the Lady Techsters lost in the Championship Game four other times.  In total, they went to nine Final Fours and never missed the Tournament in his 20 years as head coach.  Barmore’s career winning percentage of .869 is the best all-time.

12.  Jim Boeheim: He finally got his national title in 2003, which almost seemed like a Lifetime Achievement Award for all he’s contributed to the game.  Jim Boeheim and Syracuse basketball are synonymous, just like Jim Boeheim and the 2-3 zone are synonymous.  Five Big East championships (Syracuse WAS the Old Big East), four Final Fours, three title game appearances, and that 2003 National Championship.  Boeheim’s 920 wins are the most ever by a coach at a single school, and he ranks second on the active coaching wins list behind only new conference rival Mike Krzyzewski.

11. Jim Calhoun: C’mon, the Syracuse-UConn rivalry had to put the Jims back-to-back.  Calhoun gets the higher spot because UConn got the upper hand a little more often in the waning days of the Big East’s best rivalry.  UConn had the edge in Big East Tournament titles (7-5) and National Championships (3-1), including that incredible run in 2011.  Like the women pre-Geno, the UConn men were irrelevant before Jim Calhoun.

10. Phog Allen: Kansas is one of college basketball’s marquee programs, and they play in a building named after this guy.  He played for Dr. James Naismith at Kansas, then did a pretty good job succeeding the game’s inventor.  His 1952 National Championship is his only official NCAA one, but Kansas also won two national titles before the NCAA Tournament started.  (Kansas also lost the final twice.)  A member of the inaugural class of inductees to the Hall of Fame, Allen’s 590 wins are the most in Kansas history.

9. Rick Pitino: I know it seems a little low, but he’s still got time to move up the list.  Pitino’s one of two coaches to lead three different teams to the Final Four, and the only one to win National Championships at two different schools.  He took Providence from nowhere to the Final Four, resurrected the Kentucky program (and probably should’ve won three straight national titles in Lexington), then moved across the state after a stint in the NBA and carried on the legacy at Louisville.  And let’s not forget his time at Boston University.  I have a feeling he’s got more National Championships in him.  (Interesting fact about Louisville, they went to the Final Four the year before joining the Big East, then won the national title in their last year in the Big East.)

8. Adolph Rupp: He’s fifth all-time in wins, posting 876 victories in a remarkable 41-year career.  And his .822 winning percentage is second all-time.  Adolph Rupp was probably the “Greatest Coach of All-Time” before John Wooden came along.  Kentucky’s one of the sport’s glamour programs because of Adolph Rupp.  That’s why they named the arena after him.  All of his records are staggering, and he was at the helm for four of their eight National Championships.

7. Hank Iba: The first great NCAA Tournament dynasty belonged to Hank Iba’s Oklahoma State teams.  He was the first coach to win consecutive National Championships (1945-46), and Oklahoma State was the runner-up in 1949.  The National Coach of the Year Award is named for him, and so is Oklahoma State’s arena.  He also boasts an incredible Olympic legacy, leading the U.S. to gold in 1964 and 1968, as well as the disputed silver in 1972.

6. Dean Smith: As hard to believe as it is, I don’t have Dean Smith in the Top Five.  Obviously, North Carolina basketball is what it is because of Dean Smith.  He won 879 games in 36 years, which was the record at the time of his retirement.  Of course, he needed Michael Jordan to finally win his first National Championship, then added another in 1993, but his legacy would’ve been sealed without either one.  That’s why the building’s named after him.

5. Geno Auriemma: One of the things Rick Pitino made sure to point out yesterday was that Geno’s 1991 UConn team was very similar to his 1987 Providence team.  They weren’t talented enough to be in the Final Four, but got there anyway.  Before he arrived, UConn had never been to the NCAA Tournament.  Now, of course, they’re the marquee program in the entire sport.  Countless All-Americans, four undefeated seasons (including a record 90-game winning streak), a record eight national titles, 14 Final Fours (including a record six straight).  This year’s title team was the start of a new UConn dynasty.  He might only need two years to tie John Wooden’s record of 10 National Championships.  And let’s not forget an Olympic gold medal in London, where the U.S. team (made up mostly of UConn players) completely obliterated the competition.

4. Bobby Knight: Where do you begin about Bobby Knight?  He was firey, and incredibly entertaining, to say the least.  And the man sure knows how to coach basketball!  Six great years at Army, then he became a legend at Indiana.  Three national titles later, he was fired because of his behavior, only to show up at Texas Tech and make that program relevant during the six-plus seasons he was there.  Three men’s coaches in history have 900 career wins: Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Boeheim and Bobby Knight.

3. Pat Summitt: What John Wooden and UCLA did for men’s college basketball, Pat Summitt and Tennessee did for the women’s game.  She’s the only coach in history with 1,000 wins, and that total easily would’ve reached 1,100 if she hadn’t retired for health reasons (she ended up with 1,098).  Still, eight National Championships (tied for the most all-time), 18 Final Fours, 27 consecutive Sweet Sixteen appearances, a 100 percent graduation rate.  There was a time when every player that had ever played at Tennessee under Summitt had been to at least one Final Four in her career.

2. Mike Krzyzewski: Love Duke or hate Duke, there’s no denying Mike Krzyzewski’s greatness.  He’s got more wins than any other Division I men’s coach to go along with 13 ACC Tournament Championships, 11 Final Fours and three national titles.  For good measure, he led the NBA stars of the U.S. Olympic team to gold medals in Beijing and London, and just announced that he’ll go for No. 3 in Rio.

1. John Wooden: Could there be any other?  Ten national titles in 12 years, an 88-game winning streak, an all-time record of 664-162.  John Wooden and UCLA are the first names you think of when you think college basketball.  A true legend in so many ways.