In mid-October, we blogged this entry related to Stewart Mandel’s list of The Best and The Worst College Football coaches.
Today, Mandel shares his Top 10 active college basketball coaches.
Mandel qualifies his rankings as follows:
Much like I’ve done the past two seasons for football, the following list is an attempt to rank the sport’s top-10 coaches right now. It is not a career-achievement list, so while a coach’s track record obviously plays a huge part in his reputation, more weight was placed on his most recent performances (sorry, Lute Olson). Similarly, only those who have been head coaches for at least three seasons were considered (sorry, Anthony Grant).
As for the criteria, winning championships and getting to Final Fours is the benchmark by which all college coaches are judged. But I also placed added value on coaches who get more out of less, have recently rebuilt programs or whose imprint is clearly visible in the way their teams play.
We were working on this entry when I saw that ACCNow had already made some comments.
Kudos to ACCNow for recognizing:
Like Pete Carroll in football, recent success trumps career achievement on Mandel’s list. He went with, surprise!, Billy Donovan at No. 1.
Ol’ Roy before K? Jim Calhoun in front of K? Hmmm. Don’t necessarily agree but it’s Mandel’s world.
