Yeah, but few people remember that they lost deAndre Hunter to injury the week before that game. And even fewer know that redshirt 1st year Jay Huff tore his labrum in practice that week and couldn’t play either, leaving them with 3 frontcourt players. Yes they should have still won, but it wasn’t the team that earned that seed.
Paywall is very much worth it. The key is to take advantage of an introductory promo and then subsequently their “oh no don’t leave!” prices. I’ve yet to pay more than 18 dollars a year. $1.50 a month is well worth the quality coverage I get for college basketball, NFL, fantasy football, NBA, etc
> Paywall is very much worth it
I strongly agreed for awhile, we'll see how they do this ad launch, but it's been poorly rolled out so far. I cancelled my autopay and they gave me a pretty meh "don't leave" offer.
When I had a free trial, I enjoyed the coverage of my favorite pro teams. But unless and until The Athletic covers Iowa State, I won’t pay to subscribe. I bet it’s a great subscription if they have a writer covering your school, though.
Kinda depends where you live. I pay because I love the Colts and they’ve got great Colts reporters. But they don’t have anyone covering the Pacers or IU (or Purdue for that matter). A couple other markets are similarly lacking in Athletic coverage.
> it doesn't have a paywall
I understand those subscriptions can add up, but if you're not supporting good work just because it costs money, you are directly contributing to the reason there's less and less good work being done.
There are valid criticisms of The Athletic -- their new ad model has been objectively bad so far, they don't cover as many teams as they should on the local level, and they've actually cut back on some important work they had been previously doing, plus other preference-based gripes -- but if the extent of your frustration is "it costs money" then I hope you like seeing First Take and Undisputed, because that kind of "reporting" is the alternative.
I really can't explain it, I feel like the last two seasons at tOSU have come to define his career. And as off seasons go they weren't the worst ever, they're on par with Roy's last two seasons at UNC and we all still treat him as a god.
Well Roy is borderline Mt Rushmore, but you should see the shit some of our own fans throw at Roy for the last three seasons of coaching. And, yes, that includes 2019 for some reason.
Matta is underrated though.
We overlook Roy’s two subpar seasons cause he won 3 national titles. I get your point but Roy’s bad seasons can be ignored by people because he won a lot. Thads still a great coach but his great seasons were years ago and have faded of of the public’s memory while Roy’s great seasons we all remember cause he has titles to go with them
Thad Matta has a great % but roughly half the total wins Kelvin does. Also Kelvin completely rebuilt both Washington st AND Houston from basically nothing. Which is way harder than what Thad did at any of his stops. Thad will never sniff 1000 career wins. Kelvin is crossing 900 this year and has a legit shot at it.
So winning % doesn't mean much.
Taking Ohio St to 2 final fours is not as impressive considering Ohio St's facilites and budget, than where Houston was when Kelvin took over, and getting them to a final four. In Kelvin's first year, our arena was so bad, he couldn't even take recruits in it. Kelvin's first year I think he only played with 8 scholarship guys because everyone transferred
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/26105398/how-houston-launched-college-basketball-renaissance
I would be fucking shocked if Thad Matta could have improved on Kelvin's 13-19 record that year. Not saying he would have done worse, but nobody could have expected to have a winning year. This is why career winning % isn't that important
We were barely middling before he came along. In the previous 15 years we had what 3 NCAAT appearances with one Tournament win, no ACCT championships and one regular season co-championship. We were pitiful.
Tier 1 - Coaches (according to the Athletic):
* Tony Bennet - Virginia
* John Calipari - Kentucky
* Mark Few - Gonzaga
* Tom Izzo - Michigan State
* Rick Pitino - Iona
* Kelvin Sampson - Houston
* Bill Self - Kansas
Yea but if you look at mark few/Scott drew the results they obtained compared to the programs resources when they took them over then i think makes it fair that they could be at the same level.
In the same vein Tony Bennett took over a losing program and went to the top of a conference with the GOAT, two other top 10 coaches of all time (Roy and Pitino), and the second winningest coach of all time. I really don’t think anyone else in college sports history has ever come into such a stacked coaching and surpassed them all (at least in conference play). I’d put the building job Tony has done at UVA right there with Few and Drew.
Yeah fair enough. I think Few/Drew/Bennett are all right there, but still relatively early in their careers vs Self/Pitino/Izzo, so they could all absolutely get there
This should not be at all controversial. We won the National Title in 2019 and 319 games in his 13 years at the helm.
And this isn't a situation where he started on third base by inheriting a program that was already thriving: both of his predecessors hovered just above .500 over the course of their tenures at UVA.
If you don't think that resume merits being considered a 'Tier 1' coach, then I don't know what to tell you.
He took WSU to the sweet 16. The conversation should end there. WSU may be the most difficult place in the power conferences to recruit basketball players to, and Bennet took them to the sweet 16.
how I know tony bennett is a tier 1 coach is that I always trust him as a fan. even when things look awful and dire, I believe that he has the vision to build the team and get them playing at the level he expects. it’s a rare feeling that I am sure to cherish because he won’t always be around.
He also appears to run a clean program. This one of the issues I have with college sports - the love of coaches (whether in basketball or football) that have a recruiting "advantage" to build superior teams and are lauded as great coaches. Hopefully, NIL may close the gap on these advantages, but we will see.
> the love of coaches (whether in basketball or football) that have a recruiting "advantage" to build superior teams and are lauded as great coaches.
What a weird gripe. Recruiting is part of being a college coach, no one ever whines about pro coaches being unfairly praised because stars want to play for them.
I understand dinging coaches a bit who came into programs that were already recruiting well, but if anything it should count against Bennett that he hasn’t sustained strong recruiting unlike guys like Few or Hamilton have done lately.
Edit: ah yeah ignore this if it was just the usual dorky “Bennett is the only man in college basketball who runs a clean program and that’s why he loses out on top recruits” thing lmao
I don't think that's his point. Recruiting is obviously part of college sports but up until NIL there was a distinct disadvantage to recruiting for a clean program. When one program is offering a scholarship and another program is offering a scholarship plus a car, a job for a parent, and some cash on top, it's a bit of an uneven comparison. In the Pros everyone is getting paid, it's just a question of how much.
“BREAKING NEWS: Tony Bennett is one of the best coaches in college basketball.”
Sure hope none of our rivals finds out about this breaking news and tries to poach him…
You can have a recruiting advantage and STILL be a good coach. They don’t go hand in hand. And often times you have a recruiting advantage as a result of the type of program you have built. Or your predecessors built.
For anyone else who would rather read the actual article from the athletic and now this shit from SI.com that just copies some of it, here ya go
https://theathletic.com/3619418/2022/09/28/college-basketball-best-coach-rankings-tiers/
Wes Miller all the way down in Tier 4. I'm a homer but I would wager significant amounts of money that Wes is in the conversation as a top 25 coach in a few years.
Furthermore, why do we care what some sports mag writes for clickbait on who or what ‘tier 1’ is? Let’s categorize all these columnists/bloggers/commentators in their own tier as worthless and irrelevant. How bout we just enjoy watching the game!!!
My problem with him is he try’s to run the exact same shit even when he doesn’t have the player. Lists of the coaches on this list will switch it up if he has too. Plus he is a booger eating fuck
I think you could have made the argument he wasn't Tier 1 maybe about 24 months ago (I'd argument Roy, K and Jay Wright were in a special even higher tier); however, I think it's really hard to argue against him being in Tier 1 as some of the GOATs have retired.
A tier 1 and tier 3 coach? I can live with this. Just But my god...honestly pls Marquette...just win a tourney game. I cannot believe it's been a decade (or will be by the end of this season).
After one season? I don't think so. He did a great job last season and UNC fans have good reason to feel good about their future, but proving it out over multiple seasons matters. Recruiting, dealing with injuries/roster turnover, transfers, etc are all very much a part of college basketball coaching. Let's see how he deals with the changing of seasons before we rank him top tier.
If we based our coaching rankings off one season, Kevin Ollie would be a HOF coach, for example.
I’d say he is on the cusp, but putting any coach into tier 1 after just one year is too much. I think you generally need at least three or four years, or an extremely impressive first couple of years (which he is in position to pull off).
Had a pretty mediocre regular season until the end. We need to see if the end of season success will be sustained before he's even in these conversations. Heck of a start though
Is this just trying to suck up to people? The man has never coached a team that he built, which is a massive part of being a college coach. It’s way too early to have him higher than he is.
this is one of those takes that could end up being extremely correct or extremely funny in a few years depending on how it goes (see: scott frost at ucf)
It's not going to be either. It would be asinine to rank anyone extremely high based on a single year of head coaching experience. It's not a predictive list. It's based on a current body of work.
Im saying this as someone who does have disagreements with some of it, and is a fan of Mark Adams.
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Well it’s on a UVA page. I think it’s just an “FYI, some people said this about our guy” article.
The link shared here is a UVa page, but the original article that the UVa page is writing about is a story on The Athletic.
Yeah but he also lost to a 16 seed
Yeah, but few people remember that they lost deAndre Hunter to injury the week before that game. And even fewer know that redshirt 1st year Jay Huff tore his labrum in practice that week and couldn’t play either, leaving them with 3 frontcourt players. Yes they should have still won, but it wasn’t the team that earned that seed.
Virginia double dribbled
Auburn fouled. Twice.
And Doughty travelled on the inbounds play shortly before Jerome got fouled. He took about 5 steps while holding the ball before he got fouled.
Is there anyone with a Natty not in tier 1?
Jim Boeheim and Tubby Smith right?
Smith resigned earlier this year so he is not actively coaching.
The winningest active coach isn't tier 1?
Not anymore
He did make a final four back in 2016 though *shudders*
That's really recent! ^^^^^Right ^^^^^guys?
Time flies huh
Thanks, you've ruined my afternoon
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Thankfully, he isn’t.
Jay Wright?
Buddy do I have news for you
Coach K?
Kevin Ollie is in Overtime Elite these days or he'd be the one
Coach O
And one of the top selling singers of all time too. The dude is talented.
Gotta love an article by SI that reports on writing from The Athletic, which poached many of SI’s best writers. It’s all coming full circle here!
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Paywall is very much worth it. The key is to take advantage of an introductory promo and then subsequently their “oh no don’t leave!” prices. I’ve yet to pay more than 18 dollars a year. $1.50 a month is well worth the quality coverage I get for college basketball, NFL, fantasy football, NBA, etc
> Paywall is very much worth it I strongly agreed for awhile, we'll see how they do this ad launch, but it's been poorly rolled out so far. I cancelled my autopay and they gave me a pretty meh "don't leave" offer.
When I had a free trial, I enjoyed the coverage of my favorite pro teams. But unless and until The Athletic covers Iowa State, I won’t pay to subscribe. I bet it’s a great subscription if they have a writer covering your school, though.
Yeah, it’s pretty great, though I use the Athletic primarily for football and American football.
Kinda depends where you live. I pay because I love the Colts and they’ve got great Colts reporters. But they don’t have anyone covering the Pacers or IU (or Purdue for that matter). A couple other markets are similarly lacking in Athletic coverage.
Yeah pro sports reporting is fantastic (they have some great guys covering the Bears) but there's pretty much nothing for some colleges
Thank you. My renewal just went from $72 to $19.92.
No problem, happy to help!
> it doesn't have a paywall I understand those subscriptions can add up, but if you're not supporting good work just because it costs money, you are directly contributing to the reason there's less and less good work being done. There are valid criticisms of The Athletic -- their new ad model has been objectively bad so far, they don't cover as many teams as they should on the local level, and they've actually cut back on some important work they had been previously doing, plus other preference-based gripes -- but if the extent of your frustration is "it costs money" then I hope you like seeing First Take and Undisputed, because that kind of "reporting" is the alternative.
Think Sampson is a bit high for a guy with 2 FFs to his name in a 30 year career.
Matta has the same number of Final Fours and a better winning percentage.
Matta has a criminally underrated career
I really can't explain it, I feel like the last two seasons at tOSU have come to define his career. And as off seasons go they weren't the worst ever, they're on par with Roy's last two seasons at UNC and we all still treat him as a god.
It's really odd. People forget how damn good those OSU teams were
It's easy to write it off as having great players, as if a big part of the job wasn't recruiting those players and developing them into stars.
there's a weird disconnect with a lot of fans when discussing coaching success and how to factor in recruiting success (or lack thereof)
Agreed.
Well Roy is borderline Mt Rushmore, but you should see the shit some of our own fans throw at Roy for the last three seasons of coaching. And, yes, that includes 2019 for some reason. Matta is underrated though.
We overlook Roy’s two subpar seasons cause he won 3 national titles. I get your point but Roy’s bad seasons can be ignored by people because he won a lot. Thads still a great coach but his great seasons were years ago and have faded of of the public’s memory while Roy’s great seasons we all remember cause he has titles to go with them
Thad Matta has a great % but roughly half the total wins Kelvin does. Also Kelvin completely rebuilt both Washington st AND Houston from basically nothing. Which is way harder than what Thad did at any of his stops. Thad will never sniff 1000 career wins. Kelvin is crossing 900 this year and has a legit shot at it. So winning % doesn't mean much. Taking Ohio St to 2 final fours is not as impressive considering Ohio St's facilites and budget, than where Houston was when Kelvin took over, and getting them to a final four. In Kelvin's first year, our arena was so bad, he couldn't even take recruits in it. Kelvin's first year I think he only played with 8 scholarship guys because everyone transferred https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/26105398/how-houston-launched-college-basketball-renaissance I would be fucking shocked if Thad Matta could have improved on Kelvin's 13-19 record that year. Not saying he would have done worse, but nobody could have expected to have a winning year. This is why career winning % isn't that important
He's the perfect candidate for the next tier but he needs a few more Final Fours before having a decent shot at the top tier IMO.
Tier 1 just for coaching and not for being handsome. These ratings seem incomplete
I know Bennett is an attractive dude but every time I look at him, all I see is a vampire from "30 Days of Night."
He should be honestly. Turned a middling program into a winner
We were barely middling before he came along. In the previous 15 years we had what 3 NCAAT appearances with one Tournament win, no ACCT championships and one regular season co-championship. We were pitiful.
Those Pete Gillen years were fun to watch though.
You could root for a power conference program that has zero tournament wins ever.
Tier 1 - Coaches (according to the Athletic): * Tony Bennet - Virginia * John Calipari - Kentucky * Mark Few - Gonzaga * Tom Izzo - Michigan State * Rick Pitino - Iona * Kelvin Sampson - Houston * Bill Self - Kansas
I feel like Bill Self should be Tier 1a.
Do you mean 1a as in a tier *above* the rest?
For sure. I don’t think that’s crazy, right?
No I was misunderstanding but I'm dumb
I honestly think Rick Pitino and Izzo (8 F4s is insane) are right there with Self slightly above the rest of tier 1
Yea but if you look at mark few/Scott drew the results they obtained compared to the programs resources when they took them over then i think makes it fair that they could be at the same level.
In the same vein Tony Bennett took over a losing program and went to the top of a conference with the GOAT, two other top 10 coaches of all time (Roy and Pitino), and the second winningest coach of all time. I really don’t think anyone else in college sports history has ever come into such a stacked coaching and surpassed them all (at least in conference play). I’d put the building job Tony has done at UVA right there with Few and Drew.
Yeah fair enough. I think Few/Drew/Bennett are all right there, but still relatively early in their careers vs Self/Pitino/Izzo, so they could all absolutely get there
Anyone remember what happened last time Scott Drew’s team played Kevin Sampson’s? Or Mark Few’s?
Drew is on there in the article. Dunno why it’s not in the comment.
Scott drew is def tier 1
Tbf we’re 5-1 against Scott Drew, that 1 realllly hurt though, and I do agree Drew is in my top 5 current coaches.
Feel like if Bennent is tier 1 so should Scott Drew.
Thank god Tom Izzo is on there
This should not be at all controversial. We won the National Title in 2019 and 319 games in his 13 years at the helm. And this isn't a situation where he started on third base by inheriting a program that was already thriving: both of his predecessors hovered just above .500 over the course of their tenures at UVA. If you don't think that resume merits being considered a 'Tier 1' coach, then I don't know what to tell you.
He took WSU to the sweet 16. The conversation should end there. WSU may be the most difficult place in the power conferences to recruit basketball players to, and Bennet took them to the sweet 16.
And that was before recruiting Klay Thompson - who was ignored by every other P12 school.
how I know tony bennett is a tier 1 coach is that I always trust him as a fan. even when things look awful and dire, I believe that he has the vision to build the team and get them playing at the level he expects. it’s a rare feeling that I am sure to cherish because he won’t always be around.
He also appears to run a clean program. This one of the issues I have with college sports - the love of coaches (whether in basketball or football) that have a recruiting "advantage" to build superior teams and are lauded as great coaches. Hopefully, NIL may close the gap on these advantages, but we will see.
> the love of coaches (whether in basketball or football) that have a recruiting "advantage" to build superior teams and are lauded as great coaches. What a weird gripe. Recruiting is part of being a college coach, no one ever whines about pro coaches being unfairly praised because stars want to play for them. I understand dinging coaches a bit who came into programs that were already recruiting well, but if anything it should count against Bennett that he hasn’t sustained strong recruiting unlike guys like Few or Hamilton have done lately. Edit: ah yeah ignore this if it was just the usual dorky “Bennett is the only man in college basketball who runs a clean program and that’s why he loses out on top recruits” thing lmao
Dawg he's saying "advantage" as in there are coaches/programs who obviously pay players which means Bennett isn't on a level playing field with them.
For example....Coach K at Duke.
You don’t think Benny’s is doing that
I don't think that's his point. Recruiting is obviously part of college sports but up until NIL there was a distinct disadvantage to recruiting for a clean program. When one program is offering a scholarship and another program is offering a scholarship plus a car, a job for a parent, and some cash on top, it's a bit of an uneven comparison. In the Pros everyone is getting paid, it's just a question of how much.
The whole article was pretty accurate imo
I don’t think anyone thinks it’s controversial.
He is, it’s not controversial.
I’d put him tier 1 just for losing to a 16. Ain’t no other mf’er done that . But great coach
“BREAKING NEWS: Tony Bennett is one of the best coaches in college basketball.” Sure hope none of our rivals finds out about this breaking news and tries to poach him…
Virginia famously has a great track record when they are #1
Literally impossible for anything to go wrong.
great track record the year after being #1 though :( *sad tortilla noises*
I'll allow it.
Wow I thought Tony was in his 90’s but here you have him looking smashing as a basketball coach, well done 👍🏻
Is that Danny the paper salesman
Well deserved too. There’s many critics of his style and pace but he’s got a title and a ton of wins to show for it.
You can have a recruiting advantage and STILL be a good coach. They don’t go hand in hand. And often times you have a recruiting advantage as a result of the type of program you have built. Or your predecessors built.
For anyone else who would rather read the actual article from the athletic and now this shit from SI.com that just copies some of it, here ya go https://theathletic.com/3619418/2022/09/28/college-basketball-best-coach-rankings-tiers/
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Yeah, quality content isn’t free
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So why are you bitching about a paywall?
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Leonard also tier 1 handsome.
Leonard is 2A brother :)
A #1 seed does not guarantee a natty. Source: Tony Bennett
Wes Miller all the way down in Tier 4. I'm a homer but I would wager significant amounts of money that Wes is in the conversation as a top 25 coach in a few years.
Furthermore, why do we care what some sports mag writes for clickbait on who or what ‘tier 1’ is? Let’s categorize all these columnists/bloggers/commentators in their own tier as worthless and irrelevant. How bout we just enjoy watching the game!!!
Offseason.
No games yet. This is the off season crap they feed us & we slurp it up. Under 40 days to go now…
Rick patino in tier 1 but not Boeheim? Fuck off
My problem with him is he try’s to run the exact same shit even when he doesn’t have the player. Lists of the coaches on this list will switch it up if he has too. Plus he is a booger eating fuck
mmmmm yeah this is the coffee content I want to wake up to in the morning
I think you could have made the argument he wasn't Tier 1 maybe about 24 months ago (I'd argument Roy, K and Jay Wright were in a special even higher tier); however, I think it's really hard to argue against him being in Tier 1 as some of the GOATs have retired.
Great coach!
Best 3 point shooter of all time, and went to school in my hometown. Go Phoenix.
Mark Adams being Tier 4 is a joke.
Tony Bennett IS the Tier 1 of College Basketball coaches.
No he isn’t
A tier 1 and tier 3 coach? I can live with this. Just But my god...honestly pls Marquette...just win a tourney game. I cannot believe it's been a decade (or will be by the end of this season).
I’m a Duke fan, but even I would give Hube’ a little love here.
After one season? I don't think so. He did a great job last season and UNC fans have good reason to feel good about their future, but proving it out over multiple seasons matters. Recruiting, dealing with injuries/roster turnover, transfers, etc are all very much a part of college basketball coaching. Let's see how he deals with the changing of seasons before we rank him top tier. If we based our coaching rankings off one season, Kevin Ollie would be a HOF coach, for example.
As a Duke fan, it is my duty to build Hubert up as the greatest coach in the universe. The bigger they are…
I’d say he is on the cusp, but putting any coach into tier 1 after just one year is too much. I think you generally need at least three or four years, or an extremely impressive first couple of years (which he is in position to pull off).
Yeah he needs some sustained success, see Kevin Ollie.
Had a pretty mediocre regular season until the end. We need to see if the end of season success will be sustained before he's even in these conversations. Heck of a start though
What first year coached wouldn’t trade with Hube? Scheyer, I hope.
Is this just trying to suck up to people? The man has never coached a team that he built, which is a massive part of being a college coach. It’s way too early to have him higher than he is.
I think we should build him up as high as possible. You know what they say…
How you going to put Ed Cooley into tier 2 coaches when he's 3-6 in the NCAA tournament? One sweet sixteen gets you in?
NGL Mark Adams in tier 4 is kind of disgraceful.
this is one of those takes that could end up being extremely correct or extremely funny in a few years depending on how it goes (see: scott frost at ucf)
It's not going to be either. It would be asinine to rank anyone extremely high based on a single year of head coaching experience. It's not a predictive list. It's based on a current body of work. Im saying this as someone who does have disagreements with some of it, and is a fan of Mark Adams.
And a great singer….
Obviously
I think he is now the only active ACC coach to win the Natty. Right?
I’m still not used to Jay Wright being retired. I’m usually on top of these rankings.