Coack K's assault on 902

[Salty Breezes]

When the season began, I believe Coach K was sitting at #8 all-time in Division I wins, with the only active coaches ahead of him being Lute Olson and Bobby Knight. He's passed Lute, and now Knight's done. If we figure K passes 802 this season, he'll have only 100 to go.

Assuming he stays (let's all now pray to our favorite deity/rub our lucky rock), what's your guess as to the date he passes the magic number?

My best guess is January 16, 2012.

[III]

Let's get real here. The 16th is a Monday! The chances of us having a game then are slim to none, unless ESPNfuture thinks ACC Mondays are the next big thing. :D

[Tom B.]

When the season began, I believe Coach K was sitting at #8 all-time in Division I wins, with the only active coaches ahead of him being Lute Olson and Bobby Knight. He's passed Lute, and now Knight's done.

Even though K passed Lute and Knight has now retired, K is actually not the winningest active coach in men's Division I-A basketball. Eddie Sutton came out of retirement earlier this year to take over the job at San Francisco, and he got his 800th career win this past Saturday. I'm pretty sure he's not going to coach past the end of this season, though, so once the season's over K will finally be #1 on the list of active men's Division I-A coaches.

[bjornolf]

2012? You can't be serious! :)

If K gets 30 wins this year and averages 30 wins over the next few seasons, he'll be at 895 going into the 2011-2012 season. I think there's a good chance he'll get more than 30/year over the next three years, but let's start there. If it breaks down like that, I'd think he'd have it before the year turns over to 2012. I'll be optimistic. I say Dec. 8, 2011.

If he can get 32/year, he could have it before the end of the 2010-2011 season.

To be TOTALLY optimistic, if he gets to 31 this year, 32 in 08/09, and 32 in 09/10, then he could get it with 33 wins in 10/11, breaking the record with 903 on April 4th, 2011, when Duke wins its fourth national title. :cool: Now THAT would be cool!

[Salty Breezes]

Too true, III -- I just picked the 16th because it was my daughter's birthday. I'll revise to the 18th, if I may.

And Tom, remember I said, "when the season began." When the season began, Sutton wasn't active.

BTW, Sutton's re-emergence just to pick up win 800 is absolutely shameful. Imagine being one of those kids on the San Fran team, desperately needing a good coach to rebuild your program, and instead getting a guy who is there for himself, and not at all for you. I respected the heck out of Sutton for leading OSU through the post-crash period; suffice it to say that respect is gone.

Additionally, I think K has a real chance to pass Sutton this season, while he's still active -- I'd love to see that.

[wilson]

...he could get it with 33 wins in 10/11, breaking the record with 903 on April 4th, 2011, when Duke wins its fourth national title. :cool: Now THAT would be cool!

Fourth? You can't be serious! We'll be on at leat six by then.

[Uncle Drew]

As many of you may or may not know the year 2012 is supposably the year the world will / could end according to sources such as the Mayan calendar, the bible code, Nostradamus etc. Of course humanity may be here long after that, or we could all go tomorrow. But I just want to state for the record that once Coach K sets the record for most coaching wins I'll be satisfied even if the doomsayers are correct. That way Roy (or anyone else) won't have the chance to ever catch the record. But the Mayan calendar states it will happen on December 12th 2012. So we need to hope it happens durring the 2011-12 season and not have us waiting on pins and needles. (A couple more national champonships in between then and now would be nice too.)

[hurleyfor3]

Let's get real here. The 16th is a Monday! The chances of us having a game then are slim to none, unless ESPNfuture thinks ACC Mondays are the next big thing. :D

I'd be thrilled to see him break it on a Monday, for reasons I'll leave it to others to figure out.

[Johnboy]

I'd be thrilled to see him break it on a Monday, for reasons I'll leave it to others to figure out.

Not in January! The first Monday in April sounds good to me.

[Duvall]

I'd be thrilled to see him break it on a Monday, for reasons I'll leave it to others to figure out.

I dunno. Breaking the record in Maui sounds kind of anti-climactic.

[hurleyfor3]

I dunno. Breaking the record in Maui sounds kind of anti-climactic.

I guess that would in fact be pre-climactic. "Monday Night" in college basketball has one unambiguous meaning, as in, "Coach K has played on Monday Night seven times."

[Salty Breezes]

That way Roy (or anyone else) won't have the chance to ever catch the record.


Luckily, the chances of Roy winning more than K are slim, at best. Roy is only three years younger than K, but at beginning of the season, was 251 wins behind. That means, if both coaches win at a rate of 30 wins per season, Roy would need at least 8 seasons of coaching after K retires to catch up. If K breaks the record in 2012 and then immediately retires, Roy would have to coach until 2020 (when he's 70) to have a shot. What's great is that it was all of those years as Dean's assistant that will keep him from ever getting to 876 wins, much less 902. Dean can hold 'em back, can't he?

Much more concerning are Boeheim and Calhoun, both directly in K's rearview. Though both are older than K, either could catch him with about 1 additional season of coaching. No one lese is close.

[hurleyfor3]

Much more concerning are Boeheim and Calhoun, both directly in K's rearview. Though both are older than K, either could catch him with about 1 additional season of coaching. No one lese is close.

Where does Lute stand? You wouldn't want to count out old guys from Arizona.

[III]

I'd be thrilled to see him break it on a Monday, for reasons I'll leave it to others to figure out.

That would be a beautiful thing indeed!

[ghost]

Where does Lute stand? You wouldn't want to count out old guys from Arizona.

Is lute still racking up the wins this year?

[Salty Breezes]

Lute started the season at 780 wins; K was at 775. I haven't heard whether AZ will try to give him this year's wins, but since I don't believe he coached a single game, it might be hard to do.

Assuming K stays around long enough to take a shot at 902, I just don't see Lute as a factor. He's clearly emotionally drained, and he's roughly 13 years older than K.

Honestly, aside from Boeheim and Calhoun, the only other player in the race for most wins is...Knight. Cremins came back; Sutton came back. If Bobby came back for a Winthrop-type job, he could add another hundred wins, and just outlast the competition. Maybe UNCW? That would be fun.

looking waaaay out, if Bob Huggins coached another 12 years, or Billy Donovan, Bill Self, Tubby Smith or Tom Izzo coached another 20 years, they'd all have a shot. That's the problem with attacking 902 -- so few coaches got their start early enough to compete.

[Turtleboy]

As many of you may or may not know the year 2012 is supposably the year the world will / could end according to sources such as the Mayan calendar, the bible code, Nostradamus etc. Of course humanity may be here long after that, or we could all go tomorrow. Actually, it isn't. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesoamerican_Long_Count_calendar#Summary)


Despite the publicity generated by the 2012 date, Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that "We [the archaeological community] have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end" in 2012.[12]

"For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle," says Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, Inc. in Crystal River, Fla. To render Dec. 21, 2012, as a doomsday or moment of cosmic shifting, she says, is "a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.
Emphasis mine.

[johnb]

Lute started the season at 780 wins; K was at 775. I haven't heard whether AZ will try to give him this year's wins, but since I don't believe he coached a single game, it might be hard to do.

My understanding is that Arizona can't give him the wins since he's not the active coach. This has episodically come up as an issue when other fans try to say that K disposed of a bunch of losses when he was forced to the sidelines with his back problems; the NCAA wouldn't have let him take the losses (and wins) because he wasn't there...

[devildeac]

Where does Lute stand? You wouldn't want to count out old guys from Arizona.

Lute is not far behind but not coaching any more this year, I think. He also is about 72 years old IIRC.