So I was looking at the names of the HD Worlds, and wondered which coaches would be next in line to have a World named after them.
I came down to three excellent coaches:
- John Thompson.
- Jim Calhoun.
- Lute Olson.
Looks like several components need to be met, based on the 10 coaches already in HD:
1. must be retired.
2. must have at least 1 national championship (with the exception of Dr Naismith).
3. must have minimum of 3 Final Fours.
4. must have coached almost his entire career at 1 school, or name is synonymous with the school.
5. must have a lot of wins.
6. must have a high winning percentage.
7. bonus points for significant impact on the sport or culture in some manner (this accounts for Naismith, who only won 50 games)... or groundbreaking feat, or being an Olympic coach, or for reaching significant milestones.
also of note in considering everything:
- with the exception of Jim Phelan of then-Div-2 Mount St Mary's, none of the HD Worlds are named after coaches from teams in the northeast... I mean, c'mon, the northeast is cool...!
Many of the top wins coaches are still active, so that eliminates Coach K, Boeheim, Pitino and Roy Williams.
So, looking at retired coaches not already in the game, with the most wins (750+), we get:
Top 5 of:
- Jim Calhoun 877, with .697 pct in 40 years, 23 Ncaa's, 4 FF's, 3 NC's.
- Eddie Sutton 806, with .710 pct in 37 years, 26 Ncaa's, 3 FF's, 0 NC's.
- Lefty Driesell 786, with .667 pct in 41 years, 13 Ncaa's, 0 FF's, 0 NC's.
- Lute Olson 776, with .731 pct in 34 years, 28 Ncaa's, 5 FF's, 1 NC.
- Lou Henson 775, with .649 pct in 41 years, 19 Ncaa's, 2 FF's, 0 NC.
Sifting through other coaches lower on the wins list who just didn't coach long enough:
- John Thompson 596, with .714 pct in 27 years, 20 Ncaa's, 3 FF's, 1 NC.
- Gary Williams 668, with .637 pct in 33 years, 17 Ncaa's, 2 FF's, 1 NC.
I may be overlooking someone, like Lou Carnesecca or Rollie Massimino, but looking at the 7 above:
- Sutton, Driesell and Henson never won a national championship.
That leaves Calhoun, Olson, Thompson and Gary Williams.
- Williams bounced around to too many teams... Boston College, Ohio State, Maryland, plus several years at American U... Olson had a cup of coffee at Long Beach following Tarkanian, went to Iowa and then Arizona... Calhoun was at Northeastern for 10+ years before UConn... Thompson was Georgetown only.
- Olson averaged 22.8 wins per year, Thompson was 22.1, and Calhoun was 21.9...
- Olson win pct was .731, Thompson was .714, and Calhoun was .697...
- Thompson built Georgetown up from a perennial doormat to a perennial national power, and was the first African-American to win a national championship, and he was the king of the 1980's Big East (over Gary Williams at BC for several years), plus coached an Olympic team... so huge intangibles for him.
- Olson took over Long Beach for 1 year after Tarkanian built it from scratch... then took over Iowa which was solid, then went to Arizona which was solid... his only NC included an OT win in the Elite-8 game over my Friars, so that's a negative for him!
- Calhoun built the Connecticut program and had made Northeastern a great school too.
So, I would rank the 3 coaches as:
- Thompson
- Calhoun
- Olson
But because we need someone from the northeast, right, I would put Thompson first (again, a hierarchy thing in the Big East).