Men's College Basketball Coaching Tiers 2022 - Who Is Now On Top in The Sport - The Athletic

9/28/22, 6:38 AM Men’s College Basketball Coaching Tiers 2022: Who is now on top in the sport?
- The Athletic
Men’s College Basketball Coaching Tiers 2022: Who is

now on top in the sport?
Dana O'Neil and Brian Hami… Sep 28, 2022 1
The best men’s college basketball head coaches are the top Xs and Os savants. The best coaches
are the best recruiters. Or the best player development gurus. Or the guys who win over the long
haul. Or the coaches are those who can conquer the brackets in March and April.
Or, in a word? Yes. To all of it.
https://theathletic.com/3619418/2022/09/28/college-basketball-best-coach-rankings-tiers/ 1/30
9/28/22, 6:38 AM Men’s College Basketball Coaching Tiers 2022: Who is now on top in the sport? - The Athletic
Welcome to The Athletic’s Men’s Basketball Coaching Tiers for 2022-23, our effort to sort out
who does the best job across the college hoops landscape in the first season without Mike
Krzyzewski and Jay Wright.
The criteria? Intentionally vague. Definitions of success vary from person to person. So we created
a list and contacted multiple sources around the sport — from search firms to agencies to those
involved in the game — and asked for input to arrive at something resembling a consensus.
“I think there are some really good young coaches out there, and some older guys who aren’t as
good as they used to be,” one search firm source says. “That’s what makes this so hard. I’m sure
you’ll hear from a lot of coaches. Good luck with that.”
Because tiering 350-plus coaches would be folly, we culled the list according to the following
qualifications:
• All head coaches from the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC;
• Any head coach from a non-“power” conference who has led his team to the NCAA
Tournament or won a regular-season conference title in the last three seasons (so high-profile
names like Archie Miller and Steve Prohm actually don’t qualify);
• Must have already coached a full season at the Division I level ( Jon Scheyer and Jerome Tang, et
al., wait ’til next year);
• Must be an active Division I head coach.
Please read and review this multiple times before lunging into the comment section, because not
everyone is of the exact same mind about any one coach, and there is bound to be disagreement
and debate. There was within the people we called. There was within The Athletic’s staff. That’s
the fun of it, no?
In fact, there’s only one certainty here.
“It’s a really hard exercise,” one coaches’ agent says. “You guys are going to get blistered.”
Tier 1
COACH TEAM
Tony Bennett Virginia
John Calipari Kentucky
Scott Drew Baylor
Mark Few Gonzaga
Tom Izzo Michigan State
Rick Pitino Iona
Kelvin Sampson Houston
Bill Self Kansas
Maybe this would be better classified as the “if you know, you know,” list because it is, perhaps,
the one group of coaches everyone agreed with. “Overall, I don’t think you can argue with those
eight guys,’’ one former coach says. This is, in essence, the dream team, the group that you’d cull
from if you were an athletic director and you could hire anyone in the country.
It is also beautifully representative of college basketball. In what other sport could you have the
Iona coach on the same list as the Kansas and Kentucky coaches and no one would argue? “If you
polled every head coach in college basketball and asked them if they could have one coach to
coach their team for one game, who would it be — I bet over 50 percent of them would say
(Pitino),’’ one agent says. “The respect he has among his peers — even the ones that don’t like him
— is pretty ridiculous.” In what other sport could two guys who’ve not won a national title (Mark
Few and Kelvin Sampson) not only make perfect sense to be included, but earn votes from some
as best of the best? When asked whom he would rank first, one former coach says, “It’s Mark
Few, but I’ll tell you what, Kelvin isn’t far behind.’’
If anything, this top tier shows that the term “blueblood” is no longer applicable to program; it’s
about the coach. You can build a powerhouse anywhere if you have the right man.
No doubt John Calipari, Bill Self and Tom Izzo, the guys sitting in college hoops’ penthouses,
rank as the no-brainers, but don’t mistake that for guys just running on cruise control. The battle
for elite players is harder than ever, what with the alternate options of the G League and
Overtime Elite available, and crafting consistency at the top might be harder now than ever. “For
Bill Self to do what he did in that conference, and win it that many times in a row — it’s almost
undoable,’’ one former coach says. Managing expectations is also no picnic. Calipari, who took
UMass and Memphis to a Final Four, has coached in the fishbowl of Kentucky since 2009, which
ought to be counted in dog years. He’s won one title and reached four Final Fours, and for the
insatiable appetite of Big Blue Nation, that’s almost not good enough. “Everyone likes to say Cal’s
not a good coach,’’ an agent says. “But he’s also like, what? Fifteen plays away from winning like
five national championships.’’
Mark Few remains in pursuit of his first national title but there’s little reason to doubt what he’s done at Gonzaga. (Jamie Schwaberow /
NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
Gonzaga, Houston, Baylor and Virginia are places where basketball expectations never
consistently existed until their coaches came along and created them. Few has taken Gonzaga
from little engine to locomotive, building a program with facilities that rival any in the country
and results that rank at the top (no worse than the Sweet 16 since 2015, 30 of the last 69 weeks
ranked at No. 1) save for the niggling missing piece of a national title. “He hasn’t won it all, but he
will,’’ one insider says, parroting the opinion of many. Houston had its Phi Slama Jama days, and
then a vast expanse of nothing until Sampson came in. Now the Cougars, who have gone Sweet
16, Final Four, Elite Eight the past three years, enter this year as a national championship
favorite. Similarly, the Ralph Sampson wonder years were a minute ago when Tony Bennett
arrived at Virginia. He brought a pack-line defensive scheme as the great equalizer for the
Cavaliers in the competitive ACC. People hated it, and carped Bennett would never win in March
with it, especially after he lost to UMBC. His answer? A national title the next year.
And then there’s Scott Drew. “It’s funny because, I know he belongs there with what he’s doing,
but it still seems strange to me to see Scott Drew as a Tier 1 coach,’’ says one agent. That was the
overriding sentiment of the Scott Drew Can’t Coach crowd, who have since been silenced as the
coach completed his resurrection of Baylor not by gobbling up five-stars, but by taking sit-out
transfers and unheralded recruits and winning a national title.
Team 2A
COACH TEAM
Dana Altman Oregon
Rick Barnes Tennessee
Chris Beard Texas
Ed Cooley Providence
Mick Cronin UCLA
Leonard Hamilton Florida State
Sean Miller Xavier
COACH TEAM
Eric Musselman Arkansas
Matt Painter Purdue
Bruce Pearl Auburn
The on-the-cusp group. Put a national championship on the resume of any of these names, and
there’s almost certainly an addition to Tier 1. But there aren’t national championships on the
respective resumes. Which left a lot of room for debate, as to who might deserve a spot among the
highest echelon of men’s college coaches.
Take, for example, Chris Beard, who supercharged Texas Tech and was an overtime away from a
national title in 2019. Beard has operated for only one season with the seemingly endless resources
at Texas, with the sparkling Moody Center opening this fall as the Longhorns’ new home floor.
“Chris Beard is really close,” an industry source says. “He’s really consistent. He seems all over the
map, but the things that are really, really consistent with him are toughness, defense, work,
preparation, recruiting personality. Watching film from last year, knowing about (Tyrese) Hunter,
seeing how they improve, seeing what they could improve — he could win a national
championship this year.”
Is Beard on the verge? It naturally depends on what direction Texas takes from here. “I’m a wait-
and-see guy with Beard,” one agent says. “Not that he’s been bad. He hasn’t been at all. He’s been
really good, but in five years are we going to be saying he underachieved at Texas?”
And yet the notion of national titles as a springboard to a place among the elite of the elite
brought about some debate with other Tier 2 names, simply because a couple guys one tier up
haven’t had the confetti fall on them in April, either. Purdue’s Matt Painter might have one of the
best basketball minds in the country, and his program wins almost metronomically at this point.
How does falling short in March affect the calculation? “What he has had to do is evolve, and he
has evolved so many times,” an industry source says. “He’s evolved with his offense. He’s evolved
with his players. He’s been able to have tough years and turn back around and win again. He’s
done it consistently. He hasn’t had a lot of issues in his program He’s built that fan base and took
it to another level. If Kelvin Sampson is on that list, and Few is on that list, then I almost think
Matt Painter (has to be).”
Likewise, does the comparison game favor Auburn’s Bruce Pearl? “Kelvin has done a great job, but
is he any different than Pearl?” an agent asked. Well, Pearl has won nearly 67 percent of his games
with 11 NCAA Tournament bids and one Final Four appearance. Sampson has won 67 percent of
his games with 18 NCAA Tournament bids and one Final Four. Eye of the beholder stuff.
Providence’s Ed Cooley may not immediately come to mind as one of the nation’s elite coaches,
mostly because of the shadow cast by the Jay Wright-era at Villanova. But Cooley’s degree-of-
difficulty points, relative to the results at Providence, earn him his spot. “When you look at some
of the other jobs in these (top) tiers, Providence is not this great job,” one agent says. “And he’s
been extremely competitive in the Big East. He’s a really good basketball coach that has done
more with less for a long time.” What Cooley accomplishes now that he’s out of the
aforementioned shadow pretty much will be legacy-defining. “He and (Danny) Hurley have to
make a real jump now that Jay is out, because (Villanova) is going to change,” one industry source
says. “It just is.”
A run at a long-awaited Final Four and national title is about the only missing element for Sean
Miller, now back for a second stint at Xavier. “There’s really no weakness to what he does,” the
industry source says. “He’s one of the top 20 coaches in the country. Easy. Maybe higher.” Or as
one agent put it: “He’s a really good coach. He won at Xavier, won at Arizona and he’s going to
win at Xavier again and never leave.”
And then there’s Eric Musselman, who has delivered at a high level both at Nevada and Arkansas
… but maybe just not at the highest of high levels. The Razorbacks might be poised to do so in
short order, however, which could change Musselman’s personal narrative. “Arkansas is one of the
hottest teams in the country,” an industry insider says. “They’re on a rocket ship. They’ve really
capitalized on NIL, and he’s a really, really good coach.” Like it or not, apparently. “He’s done a
really good job, but I just wish for one game he’d act like he’s been there,” an agent says. “That
stuff, it can count against you. If they had somehow beaten Duke and ended Coach K’s career,
would he have run around like a moron? He would have been like the only guy who could make
everyone like Coach K. But he’s a good coach.”
Jim Boeheim’s place in college basketball is of some question. (Brad Penner / USA Today)
Tier 2B
COACH TEAM
Jim Boeheim Syracuse
Bob Huggins West Virginia
More than 150 coaches made the final cut for this exercise. Two caused more discussion,
argument, division and dissension than any others — Jim Boehiem and Bob Huggins. The folks
The Athletic spoke to couldn’t come up with an agreed-upon landing spot. Polled for assistance,
The Athletic staff couldn’t reach a consensus. Even the two people whose names appear at the top
of this story disagreed. “Oooohhhweee, I went back and forth on that one,’’ says one grassroots
coach, summing up the internal conversation for everyone. After much debate, we compromised,
creating a separate wing for the two Hall of Famers.
From the outside, maybe it doesn’t seem so complicated. Boeheim is the winningest active coach
in the business, with 998 wins* (the NCAA vacated 101 of them, so some might argue that
number is 1,099). In 46 years at Syracuse, he’s had one losing season. He won a national
championship in 2003 and has coached in four more Final Fours, the first in 1987 and the most
recent in 2016. He made the Sweet 16 in 2021 and 2018. “If you had one game to play and you
gave Jim the team, it’s going to be very, very hard to beat him,’’ an industry source says. “He as
much as anybody else would have a tremendous opportunity to win, because of the zone, because
he doesn’t overcoach the offense. It’s not complicated, but they are committed to what they do.”
Huggins has more than 900 wins on his resume, winning at places where that’s hard (Akron,
Cincinnati and West Virginia). He took both the Bearcats and the Mountaineers to the Final
Four, and both times a devastating injury (to Kenyon Martin at Cincinnati and Da’Sean Butler at
West Virginia) left people wondering what might have been. Out of the last 26 NCAA
Tournaments, Huggins has coached in 23 of them and just four years ago, he went to back-to-
back Sweet 16s. “Not only look at what he’s done, but look where he’s done it,’’ one grassroots
coach says “The fact that he’s still here, doing what he’s doing? C’mon. He’s at West Virginia
doing this.’’
So what’s the problem? It boils down to longevity versus immediacy. “Is this a lifetime
achievement award or not?” one insider says. For Boeheim, that one losing season came last year,
the third season in a row in which the Orange failed to reach the 20-win threshold, and in that
2021 regional semifinal year, Syracuse entered the field as an unheralded No. 11 seed. “If his
career was flipped, he’d be in Tier One, right? There’s just so many variables to how somebody
could determine this,” one former coach says. Huggins, similarly, has had two losing seasons in
the last four, and was bounced in the second round of the lone NCAA Tournament he made. In
the Big 12, the Mountaineers have failed to finish above .500 in three of the last four seasons and
last year won just four league games. “It might sound like recency bias, but Bob hasn’t been real
good for a few years,’’ one insider says.
Tier 3
COACH TEAM
COACH TEAM
Randy Bennett Saint Mary's
Mike Brey Notre Dame
Hubert Davis North Carolina
Jamie Dixon TCU
Greg Gard Wisconsin
Anthony Grant Dayton
Chris Holtmann Ohio State
Juwan Howard Michigan
Dan Hurley UConn
James Jones Yale
Tommy Lloyd Arizona
Thad Matta Butler
Fran McCaffery Iowa
Greg McDermott Creighton
Niko Medved Colorado State
Porter Moser Oklahoma
Nate Oats Alabama
COACH TEAM
Shaka Smart Marquette
Kevin Willard Maryland
Buzz Williams Texas A&M
Brad Underwood Illinois
Mike Young Virginia Tech
Solid, reliable and consistent, or entirely unproven; very good, if not great or potentially great but
not yet. That’s probably the best way to describe this group. This is a mix of guys who have been
at it awhile and never disappointed but haven’t wowed yet either, and guys who rank among the
most likely to be upwardly mobile were we to redo this exercise again. So rewarding for
consistency, and predicting potential, if you will.
Among the first group of consistent, if not spectacular winners: Randy Bennett, Mike Brey, Jamie
Dixon, Brad Underwood, Greg Gard, Chris Holtmann and Fran McCaffery. (It’s interesting that
four guys from the Big Ten — Underwood, Holtmann, McCaffery and Gard — are here. Is that
evidence to explain the Big Ten’s championship drought, or merely indicative of how hard the
conference is?)
Brey is probably the best case study. Everyone likes Mike Brey. Everyone respects Mike Brey.
Everyone knows that Notre Dame is a really hard job and maybe no one could do it better than
Brey has. “He has mastered his system and basketball culture and the way they do it,’’ one industry
source says. “They’re not going to over-practice. They’re not going to do a lot of complicated
things. They’re going to get great ball movement. They’re going to be able to mix man and zone.
He’s won a consistent period of time.” Brey took the Irish to back-to-back Elite Eights in 2015
and 2016 and has missed the tourney just seven times. But Notre Dame has come up against it
recently, failing to make it out of the first weekend since that last regional final. He is not — and
maybe at 63 years old and in his 27th year of coaching, should not — be an upwardly mobile coach.
Who is, or at least could be? Well, there are tiers to the tier, if you will — the guys who already
have some evidence to support a likely jump, and guys who just need more time to prove it. Four
years in, Nate Oats seems like a safe bet. Along with his success at Buffalo, Oats has made
Alabama (!) care about basketball, with a Sweet 16 appearance and a first-round loss that has to
include the asterisk, of what might have happened had Jahvon Quinerly not gotten hurt. Ditto
Juwan Howard, whose NBA experience cannot and should not be discounted, and who most
everyone agrees is a star in the making at Michigan.
With 12 years at Seton Hall under his belt, Kevin Willard doesn’t suit the traditional up-and-
comer mold, but not all Power 6 jobs are created alike. “People don’t know how difficult that job
is,’’ one former coach says. Yet Willard and the Pirates made five of the last six NCAA
Tournaments and now he gets the financial backing he never had, via the Big Ten and Maryland.
Insiders expect Willard to fare well in the flush D.C. area recruiting market. “He could definitely
move up,’’ one insider says. “Definitely.’’
Then there’s the might-bes. Porter Moser might be. After making Loyola Chicago and Sister Jean
household names, squeezed 19 wins and an NIT berth out of an underwhelming Oklahoma team
in his first year. “What if Hubert had won?” asked one agent about the conundrum that is Hubert
Davis. In his first year, Davis took North Carolina to within an Armando Bacot rolled ankle of
maybe a national championship. He beat Mike Krzyzewski in both his final home game at
Cameron Indoor and in the Final Four. He also entered the tourney as a No. 8 seed, having lost
by 13 to Virginia Tech in the ACC tournament. That all happened in one year. Same with
Tommy Lloyd. A sensational sidekick to Mark Few, Lloyd took over a team in disarray after the
dismissal of Sean Miller, won 33 games, rose to as high as No. 2 in the nation and reached the
Sweet 16. In one season. What does that mean? “He had a great year, but if you ask coaches, he
walked into a loaded roster. You have to see what he can do over time,’’ one insider says.
Shaka Smart went to a Final Four with VCU and bypassed a ton of offers before jumping at
Texas. He was not bad in Austin. The Longhorns went to the NCAA Tournament in three of his
last five years (and probably would have made another were it not for COVID-19), before he
opted out and headed to Marquette. There, Smart took a team that was largely dysfunctional
amid roster churn and got it to the NCAA Tournament. “I know there’s a wide range of opinions
on Shaka, but he has been to a Final Four,’’ one agent says. “He’s been to the NCAA Tournament
every year but three that he’s coached. I mean, that’s pretty damn good. “
His successor at VCU, Anthony Grant, went through the same thing, parlaying his success with
the Rams into a shot at Alabama. Alabama then is not the Alabama that Nate Oats has now; the
administration has since turned over and given Oats far more support than Grant had. And Greg
McDermott soared at Northern Iowa, bombed at Iowa State and is now at Creighton, sitting on a
team that has a host of starters back.
Are these guys up-and-comers? Or are they came-and-wenters?
Penny Hardaway got Memphis to the second round of the NCAA Tournament earlier this year. (Troy Wayrynen / USA Today)
Tier 4
COACH TEAM
Mark Adams Texas Tech
Casey Alexander Belmont
John Becker Vermont
COACH TEAM
Tad Boyle Colorado
Mike Boynton Oklahoma State
Darian DeVries Drake
Brian Dutcher San Diego State
Andy Enfield USC
Steve Forbes Wake Forest
Joe Golding UTEP
Penny Hardaway Memphis
Ray Harper Jacksonville State
Eric Henderson South Dakota State
Shaheen Holloway Seton Hall
Chris Jans Mississippi State
Robert Jones Norfolk State
Kyle Keller Stephen F. Austin
Eric Konkol Tulsa
Matt Langel Colgate
Jim Larranaga Miami
COACH TEAM
Jeff Linder Wyoming
Grant McCasland North Texas
Ritchie McKay Liberty
Matt McMahon LSU
Wes Miller Cincinnati
Chris Mooney Richmond
Scott Nagy Wright State
TJ Otzelberger Iowa State
Steve Pikiell Rutgers
Mark Pope BYU
Mike Rhoades VCU
Leon Rice Boise State
Mark Schmidt St. Bonaventure
Mike White Georgia Bulldogs
Mike Woodson Indiana Hoosiers
The mushiest of all tiers, is probably the best way to say it. Ascendant coaches with yeah-buts.
Winners with nevertheless mixed reviews. It probably skews as a more upwardly mobile group as a
whole, but also, in some cases, there’s not sufficient evidence to rule out a backslide into
anonymity.
It’s about what you’d expect in the squishy middle. Everything can go either way.
What to do, for example, with Penny Hardaway? He hasn’t won fewer than 20 games as
Memphis’ coach. He also has gotten in his own way on occasion — “He had a loaded team this
year, and it got away from him for a while,” an industry insider says — and he’s produced roughly
the same results as predecessors Tubby Smith and Josh Pastner. The rocket ship has not launched,
but neither has it teetered over and fallen to pieces. “The thing I like about Penny is he wants to
be better,” a former coach says. “He wants to be good at this. He’s not resting on his laurels. He’s
trying to be a better coach. I think he’s a little too sensitive with criticism. He brings a lot of that
upon himself. He’s got all of the support he needs locally, from his university, his fans. He doesn’t
need to worry about that stuff. He should be above it.”
Andy Enfield at USC? He’s coached top 10 teams. He’s reached the last two NCAA
Tournaments and it probably would’ve been three straight but for COVID-19. So … good, right?
“West Coast bias there,” the insider says. “He won at Florida Gulf Coast and he’s been really
good at USC. He’s not the same guy as Penny, or Mike Boynton. He’s just not.” Or … maybe not,
considering what Enfield works with? “I don’t think they play close to hard enough,” an industry
source says. “He’s a little like a modern-day Bill Frieder, where Bill always had a lot of talent and
had really good teams, but they never got over the hump because they weren’t quite tough
enough.”
Mike Boynton? Another yay vs. nay guy for winning 54.4 percent of his games and reaching one
NCAA Tournament in five years at Oklahoma State, operating under the cloud of infractions for
a while as he did so. “I just think he’s the right person,” one agent says. “He will have success
there, and when he does, he’ll get a really big job.” Counterpoint? “I don’t know,” an industry
insider says. “He’s kind of fallen off a bit.”
In the sub-category of coaches who might be viewed differently had their circumstances been
different, we find the likes of Wake Forest’s Steve Forbes and Rutgers’ Steve Pikiell. Forbes has
only been a Division I head coach for six seasons, but the turnaround in Winston-Salem has been
remarkable and people tend not to forget the wins he accrued at other levels. “Forbes has more to
prove, but he’s in a really tough place,” a former coach says. “I think he’s doing good stuff. I really
do.” Pikiell, meanwhile, did the presumably un-doable and led Rutgers back to the NCAA
Tournament for the first time since the early 1990s. “He beats you with less,” one industry source
says.
“I know they’ve put more money in the program, but for how many years did people say it was a
dead-end job?” A former coach says. “Because it was. Who would have thought they could win in
the Big Ten?”
In fact, put Mississippi State’s Chris Jans in the same company. Thoroughly successful in his
second chance at coaching life at New Mexico State, and now an SEC job offers him a chance at
undeniable legitimization. “The only reason he’s not higher is because he got in trouble at
Bowling Green and lost his job,” the industry source says. “Chris Jans would be a Big Ten coach
by now if he’d never got in trouble at Bowling Green. Nobody really knows how good a coach that
guy is.”
Up-and-comers? Take your pick. Seton Hall’s Shaheen Holloway, Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger,
Wright State’s Scott Nagy — all were lauded. Two of the more interesting calculations were
Indiana’s Mike Woodson and Norfolk State’s Robert Jones — a pair at opposite ends of the
attention spectrum. Woodson has only one year in the books at Indiana, but the professional track
record must be considered. “I mean, I would take him over Penny Hardaway any day of the week,”
one agent says.
Jones, meanwhile, requires a deeper dive than just a pass through the win-loss column. His teams
have dominated in MEAC play (114-34 in his nine years) and have now made consecutive trips to
the NCAA Tournament. “You gotta remember you can’t count the ‘buy’ games on his schedule
that he loses every year,” one grassroots source says. “Take them out and go look at his record.
And look at where he’s doing it, and what he’s doing without.” It’s a fantastic point, and certainly
something athletic directors looking to hire a coach next offseason should consider.
Tier 5
COACH TEAM
Mike Anderson St. John's
Jeff Boals Ohio
Jon Coffman Purdue-Fort Wayne
Bryce Drew Grand Canyon
COACH TEAM
Dennis Gates Missouri
Todd Golden Florida
Earl Grant Boston College
Jared Grasso Bryant
John Groce Akron
Darrin Horn Northern Kentucky
Martin Ingelsby Delaware
Ben Jacobson Northern Iowa
Ben Johnson Minnesota
Terrence Johnson Texas State
Joe Jones Boston University
Mike Jones UNCG
Pat Kelsey Charleston
Andy Kennedy UAB
Tod Kowalczyk Toledo
Rob Lanier SMU
LeVelle Moton North Carolina Central
COACH TEAM
Ryan Odom Utah State
Lamont Paris South Carolina
Joe Pasternack UC Santa Barbara
David Richman North Dakota State
Todd Simon Southern Utah
Pat Skerry Towson
Byron Smith Prairie View A&M
Kyle Smith Washington State
Jerry Stackhouse Vanderbilt
Rick Stansbury Western Kentucky
Ross Turner UC Irvine
Drew Valentine Loyola Chicago
Brian Wardle Bradley
When you start to dip this low and you have a Power 6 gig, the question is why? What are you
doing here? The answer is time, just measured differently.
In the case of Kyle Smith, for example, it’s a matter of time — as in people don’t expect him to
dwell in Tier 5 (or maybe at Washington State) too long. The job is borderline impossible, and
yet Smith this year took the Cougars to the NIT semifinals. “I think he’s for real. He’s very, very
good offensively. They play very solid defense, he takes a lot of guys from different parts of the
world or the country and they fit in well, he plays to his personnel,’’ the industry source says.
Another guy folks think could be on the move is Jerry Stackhouse — whether that’s on an upward
trajectory with Vanderbilt or back to the NBA is the question. People are impressed with the work
Stackhouse has done at a really hard job, getting the Commodores to 19 wins and an NIT
quarterfinals. “A really, really good coach. Runs really good offense,’’ an industry source says.
“They got better during the year, they stopped beating themselves. When you make a jump from
losing close games to winning close games, you’re on a good run. I like him.’’
For other guys, it’s time not yet served. Todd Golden was good at San Francisco. Dennis Gates
was good at Cleveland State. Both coached all of three years at those jobs — coached well, yes,
but still, it’s a small sample size. Lamont Paris spent five years at Chattanooga but earned just one
postseason bid in that time. And now they’ve all jumped to bigger gigs, anointed as the hot names
on the list of guys to hire. Can they live up to it? “I’m not buying the Todd Golden hype. You do
OK at San Francisco and all of a sudden you’ve rewritten the rules on basketball and you’re gonna
win four national championships in the next four years? I don’t think so,” one agent says.
Another industry source points out that the pool that all three are swimming in — namely the
SEC — is decidedly different. They have not recruited that caliber of player before, and certainly
not dealt with the intricacies of NIL. They have not faced the level of scrutiny, nor the level of
competition. “They’ve got their niches,’’ the industry source says, “but I’m not sure those niches
are going to work. I don’t know if they have any idea what they’re headed into. It’s not going to be
night and day, but it’s probably noon and night. It’s really not what kind of coach you are. It’s how
you’re going to navigate all the other things. Because the guys in that league can coach and they’ve
got a lot of resources.”
Finally, there are the guys who have given a lot of time … without a lot of results. Rick Stansbury
has six seasons under his belt at Western Kentucky, and brought in some eye-popping talent. The
Hilltoppers have yet to make an NCAA Tournament. “When’s the last time he’s achieved, let
alone overachieved, with that group?” an industry source says. “He’s got really good players.
Whatever criticism he gets, he really deserves.’’
Mike Anderson has never had a losing season in his career, going all the way back to his days at
UAB. But he’s never had a great season either, and unlike the folks tiered above him, he’s had jobs
with ample resources and opportunity. Arkansas is a very good basketball job. Always has been.
The Razorbacks, under Anderson, never made it out of the first weekend. St. John’s is not what it
was back in the day of Looie, but in a reconfigured Big East and with all of the players in the
Northeast, there is potential. The Red Storm have yet to realize it under Anderson (maybe that
changes in a hurry this year, with Andre Curbelo and Posh Alexander).
Tier 6
COACH TEAM
Griff Aldrich Longwood
Brad Brownell Clemson
Landon Bussie Alcorn State
Mark Byington James Madison
Jeff Capel Pittsburgh
Austin Claunch Nicholls State
Bill Coen Northeastern
Chris Collins Northwestern
Kermit Davis Ole Miss
Ed DeChellis Navy
Matt Driscoll North Florida
Joe Gallo Merrimack
Jerod Haase Stanford
Mitch Henderson Princeton
Fred Hoiberg Nebraska
COACH TEAM
Johnny Jones Texas Southern
Kevin Keatts North Carolina State
Dustin Kerns Appalachian State
Steve Lutz Texas A&M-Corpus Christi
Carmen Maciariello Sienna
Mark Madsen Utah Valley
Bashir Mason Saint Peter's
Nick McDevitt Middle Tennessee State
Paul Mills Oral Roberts
Josh Pastner Georgia Tech
Micah Shrewsberry Penn State
Takayo Siddle UNCW
Craig Smith Utah State
Preston Spradlin Morehead State
Zach Spiker Drexel
Tony Stubblefield DePaul
Dedrique Taylor Cal State Fullerton
COACH TEAM
Chris Victor Seattle
The crux of the debate about a few of the names in Tier 6 is best summarized by one bit of insight
from an industry source. “On any given night those guys can beat whoever they’re playing
against,” the source says. “Not everybody else on that list can do that.”
The source was referring to Northwestern’s Chris Collins and Ole Miss’ Kermit Davis,
specifically, but it could apply to quite a few notable names in this group. Respected coaching
minds. Good — and sometimes great — results in jobs where success isn’t built-in. But it’s been a
slog in recent seasons. And several of them might have to win, and win big, to remain at their
current school beyond 2022-23. So how do you judge the coach you might hire before a lot of
names in this exercise, but who also might be looking for gainful employment in a few months?
Davis, particularly, might be one of the most complicated assessments. “His team can lose a lot of
juice by the end of the year,” the industry source says. “I think he’s a very hard coach. He’s a very
demanding coach. But I think he’s a really good coach.” The results over the last half of his
Middle Tennessee State tenure — six regular-season championships, two conference tournament
championships, three NCAA Tournament bids — back that up. “He’s a really, really good
basketball coach,” a former coach says. “I wouldn’t want to play for him for five minutes. Screams
and yells at them. Tough on them. I can’t imagine it’s much fun. But one losing conference record
at Middle in 15 years. Four of his last seven years they were top 50 in KenPom. That’s darn good
when you don’t have the kind of schedule that the Power 6 have.”
And yet: two sub-.500 seasons in the last three at Ole Miss, and a lot of uncertainty entering this
year. Collins, going into Year 10 at Northwestern, cuts a similar profile. Turning that program
into an NCAA Tournament team for the first time is no small feat. But his teams haven’t finished
above .500 in any season since 2017. “You have to be both really good and pretty lucky at times
when you get a job that’s tougher than the people you’re playing against in your league, to get past
all those guys to win a conference or get past just enough of them to win an NCAA Tournament,”
a former coach says. “It’s just different than what a guy like John Calipari has to do.”
Kevin Keatts was an immediate success at UNC Wilmington (two NCAA Tournament bids in
three years) and hadn’t endured a losing season as a head coach until 2021-22. Multiple sources
The Athletic spoke to maintained he’s a better coach than even that record suggests. “He did a
really good job at UNC Wilmington,” one agent says. “He’s also been handcuffed by (issues with
former coach Mark Gottfried) more than I think people know. Problem is, he made two
tournaments at Wilmington, he made the tournament his first year at NC State, and then it’s
been kind of downhill. He plays this fun, up-and-down pressing style similar to what Rick
(Pitino) plays — but he really just hasn’t had the horses.”
And yet: An 11-21 season in Raleigh has its price. “He better be good this year,” one former
coach says.
Heck, there’s even been a bit of a Tier 6 ripple effect into the mid-major ranks, when considering
the plight of Middle Tennessee State’s Nick McDevitt, who succeeded Davis in that gig.
McDevitt’s teams posted 24 combined wins across his first three seasons before a 26-win
breakthrough in 2021-22. The 43-year-old might be at the precipice, in which his team succeeds
again and he continues along an upward trajectory … or a backslide costs him after five seasons in
Murfreesboro. “Nick McDevitt did a good job at (UNC) Asheville and really took a tough job
when Kermit left Middle,” a former coach says. “He left nobody. And Nick’s a guy that really
wants to do things right. That was a tough assignment. It was a tough one, because if you go in
there and that stuff matters to you, that you do things by the book all the time, it was just a tough
turnaround for anybody.”
Tier 7
COACH TEAM
Isaac Brown Wichita State
Juan Dixon Coppin State
Dan Engelstadt Mount St. Mary's
Patrick Ewing Georgetown
Mark Fox Cal
Mike Hopkins Washington
COACH TEAM
Bobby Hurley Arizona State
Dan Monson Long Beach State
Wayne Tinkle Oregon State
Andy Toole Robert Morris
Darrell Walker Arkansas-Little Rock
Not a whole lot of explaining necessary here. If you find yourself in Tier 7, it’s likely because you
haven’t produced or impressed consistently, over a long or short period of time, and no one The
Athletic spoke to rushed to your defense.
Is it a bit of West Coast Bias that puts a Pac-12 quartet near the bottom, though? Well, upon
close inspection, Mark Fox made two NCAA Tournaments in nine years at Georgia, coaching in
an SEC that was not nearly as cutthroat as it is currently. The success at Nevada is well in the
rearview mirror, and the results at Cal have been three straight losing seasons. “During his time at
Georgia, he won half his games in the SEC,” a former coach says. “Most of us would’ve thought
he was well below .500 because he got fired and had to move on. He had a great record at Nevada,
just hasn’t done anything at Cal yet. He’s a good coach and a good guy. I’m sure if I were Mark
Fox and saw this list, I’d think I deserve to be higher, but there’s gonna be about 90 that think
that. At least.”
That probably includes his conference peers. Bobby Hurley was a definitive success at Buffalo, but
the results at Arizona State haven’t matched the talent on hand. Effectively handing over the
program to Josh Christopher, and the debacle that followed, overrides the very real COVID-
related issues that tripped up the Sun Devils a couple years back. If Arizona State wasn’t dealing
with a mess on the football side, Hurley might be out of a job right now. Mike Hopkins has one
NCAA Tournament appearance in five years at Washington, but his team finished sub-.500 in a
season with Isaiah Stewart and Jaden McDaniels on the roster. Wayne Tinkle hasn’t had easy jobs,
and Oregon State made the Elite Eight in 2021 … but he’s only a touch better than .500 (.546)
over 16 seasons and, well, a 3-28 season in 2021-22 is massively problematic. There are arguments
to bump each one a notch, for sure. But the combination of little-to-no job security and ho-hum
recent results is hard to ignore, too.
On the other coast, there’s Georgetown. “That’s why Patrick Ewing is in there at all, right?
Because you had to put him in there?” the former coach asks. Anywhere else, and Ewing is no
longer a sitting college head coach. Who knows how much slack the former Hoyas legend will
get. But the results have not been what anyone expects, and it’s not been close.
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic: Photos: John E. Moore III, Carmen Mandato / Getty
Images)
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Men's College Basketball Coaching Tiers 2022 - Who Is Now On Top in The Sport - The Athletic

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9/28/22, 6:38 AM Men’s College Basketball Coaching Tiers 2022: Who is now on top in the sport?

Men’s College Basketball Coaching Tiers 2022: Who is

Or, in a word? Yes. To all of it.

• Must be an active Division I head coach.

In fact, there’s only one certainty here.

Tony Bennett Virginia

John Calipari Kentucky

Scott Drew Baylor

Mark Few Gonzaga

Tom Izzo Michigan State

Rick Pitino Iona

Kelvin Sampson Houston

Bill Self Kansas

Dana Altman Oregon

Rick Barnes Tennessee

Chris Beard Texas

Mick Cronin UCLA

Leonard Hamilton Florida State

Sean Miller Xavier

Eric Musselman Arkansas

Matt Painter Purdue

Bruce Pearl Auburn

Jim Boeheim Syracuse

Bob Huggins West Virginia

Randy Bennett Saint Mary's

Mike Brey Notre Dame

Hubert Davis North Carolina

Jamie Dixon TCU

Greg Gard Wisconsin

Anthony Grant Dayton

Chris Holtmann Ohio State

Juwan Howard Michigan

Dan Hurley UConn

James Jones Yale

Tommy Lloyd Arizona

Thad Matta Butler

Fran McCaffery Iowa

Greg McDermott Creighton

Niko Medved Colorado State

Porter Moser Oklahoma

Nate Oats Alabama

Shaka Smart Marquette

Kevin Willard Maryland

Buzz Williams Texas A&M

Brad Underwood Illinois

Mike Young Virginia Tech

Are these guys up-and-comers? Or are they came-and-wenters?

Mark Adams Texas Tech

Casey Alexander Belmont

John Becker Vermont

Tad Boyle Colorado

Mike Boynton Oklahoma State

Darian DeVries Drake

Brian Dutcher San Diego State

Andy Enfield USC

Steve Forbes Wake Forest

Joe Golding UTEP

Penny Hardaway Memphis

Ray Harper Jacksonville State

Eric Henderson South Dakota State

Shaheen Holloway Seton Hall

Chris Jans Mississippi State

Robert Jones Norfolk State