Espn 50 Best Coaches (Roy #16, K #4)

[Turk]

Good gravy. So my guess is the order of the remaining three spots will be:

3) Donovan, 2) Izzo, 1) Calipari

Hmph.

[ice-9]

The rankings themselves have no logical consistency, but I thought the write-up itself was quite fair and complimentary.

The most recent chunk of Coach K's career is better than almost any other coach in the sport and just sort of OK for him. How crazy is that?

[Chicago 1995]

The rankings themselves have no logical consistency, but I thought the write-up itself was quite fair and complimentary.

I thought it was fair too, considering there's little consistency in the criteria, and making it clear at it has that it's a ranking not of career achievement but simply right now -- however you want to define that. Right now, even with his resume, K's coming off a season that didn't live up to expectations (and raised some questions frankly), and Duke's in a 10 year run that's matched by a number of guys who are either just ahead or just behind K on the list. And is it so offensive to admit that save 2010, the last 10 years don't live up to the standard's K has built for the program?

Ranking Cal #1 is very fair. Ranking Billy D ahead of K, IMO, is also fair. I have a beef with the Izzo ranking, but I also understand it. Honestly, Self should probably be higher than Pitino and in this group of four at the top of the game. How you shake out the order of these guys (maybe including Boeheim) is pretty subjective and one for which there's no wrong answer.

[SoCalDukeFan]

I can understand why he is not Number 1.

First of all, there is always a lot of "What did you do for me lately?" and in the last 10 seasons, 1 Final Four. I think last year was probably K's worst coaching job, far too much talent to lose to Mercer. Secondly, I think many believe that K can easily recruit the best players so he should do well every year, which fails to understand how hard he works on recruiting and how hard he worked to build the program.

There is no way I would put Cal in my top 10. Too many violations on his watch. He is also not a very good game coach, I assume the voters missed the 2008 NC game. He has figured out (and better than K, in my opinion) a system that works with one and doners.

Billy D and Izzo are excellent coaches. My guess is that they both will tell you that K is the best.

I would rank them K, Pitano, Izzo, Billy D.

Lastly I have a friend who was a Div I assistant coach at a mid major. He told me that at the conventions etc. guys would take note of say Pitano or Roy Williams but when they saw K it would be like "OMG there is Coach K."

SoCal

[miramar]

I understand that this ranking takes a what-have-you-done-for-me-lately approach, which is fine since ESPN explains how they are doing all this, and I can also see why two recent first-round exits would affect the outcome. Nevertheless, it is curious to see Tom Izzo ranked ahead of Coach K since he would be the first to admit that Coach K absolutely owns him:

http://www.mlive.com/spartans/index...ski_the_b.html

Getting back to the first-round futility, there is no question that it is harder to develop leadership and team cohesiveness in an age of one and dones, but Coach K has indicated that he will take a different approach next year and I can't wait to see the outcome.