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Rank the Elite 8 coaches

  • SBryan said...

    Pitino is being over ranked. He's had some great talent at Louisville and has only made one final four. Louisville is not a tough place to recruit to, so it is not like getting great players there is some great feat. He was great at Kentucky, but after five years at Kentucky Cal will have similar standards. Cal also dominated at Memphis and UMASS! I duno. Pitino is great. But I don't see how so many think he's a clear number 1.

    Pitino is an incredible defensive coach and very good at adapting to what fits his players best.

    MuddyLake ●

  • TerpPride said...

    you think florida was hauling in that talent before Billy? I've been familiar with UF for a long, long time. He built that program against the tide of a gigantic football community. Roy could get 2 AAs without lifting a finger to make a phone call because of the carolina blue.

    Yup, I want to say UF didn't even have an NCAA tourney appearance until the early 1980's. With a win today that will be 4 FF's in 12 seasons for Donovan, including two titles. How in the hell anyone could put Matta above Donovan is beyond me.

    joebookman ●

  • 1. Pitino
    2. Boeheim
    3. Calipari
    4. Self
    5. Donovan
    6. Roy
    7. Matta
    8. Drew

    shuklad ●

  • Sweet!LaserTag! said...

    Not saying it automatically makes him #1 or anything but how does Donovan get almost no credit for having 2 Natty's?

    Cause he did it with one set of guys and nothing since?

    shuklad ●

  • TerpPride said...

    you think florida was hauling in that talent before Billy? I've been familiar with UF for a long, long time. He built that program against the tide of a gigantic football community. Roy could get 2 AAs without lifting a finger to make a phone call because of the carolina blue.

    I am in the same camp as you. I was saying that Billy has been pulling in really good talent while at Florida.

    SBryan

  • shuklad said...

    Cause he did it with one set of guys and nothing since?

    I think the only real knock against BD is that he doesn't consistently have elite seasons. As far having back to back, it's got to count for something as only roy has multiple titles. If BD gets to another F4, then that will be 4 as mentioned, but with 3 sets of players. i think only roy, Pitino and Boeheim lead him there. I think Cal has 3 so he'll have 4 there.

    TerpPride ●

  • shuklad said...

    Cause he did it with one set of guys and nothing since?

    The title teams were only 5 years ago. He lost everyone and had to rebuild. He went to the elite 8 last year, and he is in the elite 8 this year. He completely built that program.

    Pitino is a great coach, but he was amazing at Kentucky for 5 years and has only been pretty good at Louisville. And that is an easier place to succeed than Florida IMO.

    edit: And this providence run which was obviously amazing coaching job.

    This post was edited by SBryan on 3/24/2012 at 10:03 AM

    SBryan

  • TerpPride said...

    I think the only real knock against BD is that he doesn't consistently have elite seasons. As far having back to back, it's got to count for something as only roy has multiple titles. If BD gets to another F4, then that will be 4 as mentioned, but with 3 sets of players. i think only roy, Pitino and Boeheim lead him there. I think Cal has 3 so he'll have 4 there.

    I agree w this. He's had some real clunkers as well if I remember correctly

    shuklad ●

  • 1. Self - Close with Cal, but less likely to have crap seasons with his style and less likely to get slammed with violations
    2. Cal - Best recruiter ever
    3. Billy D- As many Elite Eight appearances at Florida as they had tournaments before he came there. So underrated.
    4. Pitino - Lower than Donovan because of age and because I don't like him.
    5. Thad Matta - Ohio State is going to be mentioned as an elite program after he's done with it.
    6. Roy - Not good once he gets the talent
    7. Boeheim - Third elite eight in 20+ years.
    8. Drew - Cheater who can't coach.

    Tabe

  • 1. Roy
    2. Self
    3. Donovan
    4. Pitino
    5. Boeheim
    6. Calipari
    7. Matta
    8. Drew

    Donovan, Self, and Pitino were the toughest to order. I probably switched those three around 10 times and I'm not still not really happy with where I put them. I'm considering whole resumes but weighting recent performance more heavily.

    aschaefe ●

  • Wow, can't believe the disrespect for Roy in these rankings. Yeah I know he's a bad in-game coach and we all like to make fun of him and all, but he's the only one of these guys to win two national championships with completely different groups (granted, he inherited most of one), and he's got two more Final Fours than the next closest guy.

    aschaefe ●

  • Pitino
    Self
    Calipari
    Donovan
    Williams
    Boeheim
    Matta
    Drew

    schmidy online

  • aschaefe said...

    Wow, can't believe the disrespect for Roy in these rankings. Yeah I know he's a bad in-game coach and we all like to make fun of him and all, but he's the only one of these guys to win two national championships with completely different groups (granted, he inherited most of one), and he's got two more Final Fours than the next closest guy.

    The "two different groups" thing is so totally overrated. Donovan gets massive, enormous points for taking that team as sophomores to the title when it wasn't even an especially highly ranked group coming in. Self could very easily have been that guy with two if he left a year later, too.

    Also Calipari at SIX? Behind JIM BOEHEIM?

    Dude!

    Tabe

  • 1. Self
    2. Pitino
    3. Mike Rice
    4. Roy Williams
    5. Donovan
    6. Boeheim
    7. Calipari
    8. Matta
    9. Drew

    GimmeTheShimmy ●

  • The only reason I can see people being down on Calipari is that he cheated. He's not going to need to cheat anymore now that he can tell every recruit he has coached three of the last five #1 overall picks in the NBA draft.

    Calipari at Kentucky is an unstoppable force.

    balderdash

    ZackGreinkeTerp

  • I'm not down on Cal because he cheated, I'm down on him because he got caught. Twice. Having said that, I don't think he'll need to cheat egregiously enough at Kentucky to get sanctioned again, nor will the NCAA want to come down on a blueblood. I'm ranking purely on results up to this point, though, not future expectations, so from that point of view I think Boeheim over Cal is defensible.

    aschaefe ●

  • 1. Cal
    2. Self
    3. Matta
    4. Donovan
    5. Pitino
    6. Boeheim
    7. Roy
    8. Drew

    terps687 ●

  • NCSUM said...

    If you're at Florida and lose more than 10 games your job should be in jeopardy.

    Lol wut? How old are you 16?

    02terp

  • SBryan said...

    Pitino is being over ranked. He's had some great talent at Louisville and has only made one final four. Louisville is not a tough place to recruit to, so it is not like getting great players there is some great feat. He was great at Kentucky, but after five years at Kentucky Cal will have similar standards. Cal also dominated at Memphis and UMASS! I duno. Pitino is great. But I don't see how so many think he's a clear number 1.

    IMO, Pitino is underrated these days on the national level. When you hear people talk about best coaches in the country his name doesn't come up as much as it used to. Over the past 9-10 years Louisville has had as many injuries to starters and key role players as anyone in the country (whether or not that's a product of Pitino's intense coaching style not sure); I'm thinking Pitino has at least 1-2 more Final Fours and a national championship if not for the injuries. In his first few years Pitino did also have a couple of NBA players commit and then back out to enter the NBA draft.

    Pitino recruits well but its not like he racks up a shitload of Mickey D's like Roy, K, or Cal. From what I recall his Final Four team had no McDonald's All-Americans and his #1 overall seeded team a couple years ago only had two (like this year's team). Some of the top contributors for his team this year were not elite recruits - Pitino is just an HOF defensive coach and motivator. I'd agree he's #1 out of that list.

    brothermouzone

  • aschaefe said...

    Wow, can't believe the disrespect for Roy in these rankings. Yeah I know he's a bad in-game coach and we all like to make fun of him and all, but he's the only one of these guys to win two national championships with completely different groups (granted, he inherited most of one), and he's got two more Final Fours than the next closest guy.

    The ones he inherited were massive underachievers under D'oh which led to him getting canned.

    terp_in_ohio ●

  • Tabe said...

    The "two different groups" thing is so totally overrated. Donovan gets massive, enormous points for taking that team as sophomores to the title when it wasn't even an especially highly ranked group coming in. Self could very easily have been that guy with two if he left a year later, too.

    It isn't overrated at all. Winning two national titles with completely different teams is a sign that your system works.

    Roy (7 FFs, 2 NCs, 61-19)
    BD (3 FFs, 2 NCs, 28-9)
    Pitino (5 FFs, 1 NC, 41-15)
    Boeheim (3 FFs, 1 NC, 45-27)
    Self (1 FF, 1 NC, 28-12)
    Calipari (3 FFs, one official FF, 0 NCs, 35-13)
    Matta (1 FF, 0 NCs, 19-9)
    Drew (0FF, 0 NCs, 6-2)

    This isn't my ranking, I'm just pointing out how dumb everyone looks for shitting on Roy. He's not a great in game coach, but recruiting is a huge part of the job, and he has been wildly succesfull.

    This post has been edited 2 times, most recently by JManslow on 3/24/2012 at 1:14 PM

    http://www.ghitp.wordpress.com/

    JManslow

  • Roy .800
    Matta .772
    Calipari .768
    Self .751
    Boeheim .746
    Pitino .744
    BD .704
    Drew .566

    http://www.ghitp.wordpress.com/

    JManslow

  • shuklad said...

    Cause he did it with one set of guys and nothing since?

    Like Gary, but he also got to the final and lost to Mich. St. in 2000 with a different group of players, and his current squad is in the elite eight. That's pretty darn good.

    JAWTerp ●

  • how many years of post-gary do we need before we can rank coaches without separating recruiting acumen from coaching ability?

    RDurr

  • JManslow said...

    It isn't overrated at all. Winning two national titles with completely different teams is a sign that your system works.

    Whereas winning two with the same team leaves some doubt as to whether your system works. Got it.

    Tabe

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