Someone asked me if I was going to write about last night's game. I don't know what to say about it that isn't said elsewhere except that I was really impressed by Al Horford and I've finally been convinced that Greg Oden is for real.
But the news that actually matters is that it just crossed the wire that Michigan has hired West Virginia coach John Beilein. And Iowa just hired Butler coach Todd Lickliter. Which means that the Big Ten now has the following coaches:
-- Tubby Smith, Minnesota
-- John Beilein, Michigan
-- Tom Izzo, Michigan State (for now)
-- Bo Ryan, Wisconsin
-- Bruce Weber, Illinois
-- Todd Lickliter, Iowa
-- Thad Matta, Ohio State (for the purpose of this exercise... and I concede that he did at least try to do some coaching in the late rounds of the tournament)
-- Kelvin Sampson, Indiana (even I have to concede that he's a big name, as slimy as much of his work as been)
-- Matt Painter, Purdue (regardless of whether the Boilermakers should have been in the tournament, he's generally done a very good job succeeding Gene Keady)
-- and... because I got convinced to throw his name in... Bill Carmody, Northwestern.
That's quite an elite group -- 10 of the conference's 11 coaches (sorry, Penn State fans). I dare say that on a per-capita basis, it's the best of the BCS conferences, with the Big East second because it has 16 teams.
Comments (1)
Dont discount the ACC when it comes to elite coaches.
Duke has Coach K.
Carolinas has Roy Williams.
Maryland has Gary Williams.
They are clearly in the basketball royalty circles.
The next wave is pretty solid too:
GaTech has Hewitt. They played in the national championship a few years back.
Although not a personal favorite, Prosser has a solid body of work.
Al Skinner's team constantly win at a pretty high level.
Len Hamilton, Seth Greenberg, and Oliver Purnell are not shabby either. Purnell is always getting nice summer assignments within USA Basketball.
And when you add in Leito at UVA and Sidney Lowe at NCState, both are young and appear to have those programs back on track - based on relative success this season.
Only real unknown is Frank Haith who is off the radar at the "U"
I would take this group up against any in the nation.
Posted by Mitchell Rosenzweig | April 3, 2007 9:59 PM
Posted on April 3, 2007 21:59