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Contributed by Peter Tiernan, ESPN.com Bracketologist
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The 2006 NCAA Tournament was not kind to many of the all-time best coaches of the 64-team era. Among active coaches with the 10 best tourney records since 1985, only Tubby Smith and his eighth-seeded Kentucky Wildcats performed better than their seed position would dictate. Six top coaches -- most notably Jim Boeheim, Tom Izzo and Mike Krzyzewski, but also Steve Fisher, Roy Williams and Jim Calhoun -- made disappointing early exits from the Dance. The other three coaches -- Rick Pitino, Tom Penders and Gary Williams -- might have been fortunate not to make the tourney.
Despite the underachievement of so many elite tourney coaches, there hasn't been much upheaval in the top-10 list of active coaches with the best tourney records. Here's how the winningest coaches with at least five tourney appearances stack up:
There are two coaches new to the top 10. With Florida's championship run, Billy Donovan vaulted from 15th place last year to eighth this year. Bruce Weber also cracked the top 10, but it was more by virtue of attaining the requisite five appearances than of performing well in 2006. The Illini won just a single game as a No. 4 seed last year. Donovan and Weber took the places of veteran coaches Boeheim and Lute Olson. Syracuse's early ouster at the hands of Texas A&M dropped Boeheim to 11th place at 35-18 (.660). Arizona actually performed better than most No. 8 seeds, winning in Round 1 and taking top-seeded Villanova to overtime. But that didn't stop Olson from falling to 13th place with a 39-21 (.650) record.
Coaching overachievers in the 64-team era
That makes Donovan the seventh-best coaching overachiever with at least five tourney appearances. Here are the PASE results of the top 10 active coaches in the modern 64-team era:
Fisher held on to the top PASE spot despite the fact that his No. 11 seed Aztecs' first-round loss dropped him under the one-game-per-tourney overachievement rate. Many have written to argue that the tainted "Fab Five" years ought to disqualify Fisher from consideration altogether, but I've restricted my analysis to the numbers. If you're inclined to dismiss Fisher, though, then Pitino is your coaching PASE leader. He jumped up to second place -- by not even coaching in the 2006 tourney. Izzo's PASE fell .243 and he dropped to third when his No. 6 seed Spartans lost to George Mason in Round 1.
Izzo and Fisher weren't the only overachievers to have their PASE numbers fall. Krzyzewski, Weber, Calhoun and Wisconsin's Bo Ryan all saw their PASE drop significantly, yet they remained in the top 10. (The slight PASE changes for Houston's Penders and Maryland's Gary Williams are the result of changes from the 2005 to 2006 wins-per-seed totals.) The only former top-10 coach whose 2006 performance forced him off the leader list was Boeheim. With his one-game underperformance as a five seed, Boeheim slid to 13th place behind UCLA's Ben Howland and Kentucky's Smith.
The only top-10 coaching overachiever who actually overachieved in 2006 was -- surprise, surprise -- Donovan. His championship run vaulted him from underperformer status (-.072 PASE) to about a half-game-per-tourney overperformance. The other two coaches to crack the top-10 PASE list got there by reaching the "five tourney appearances" qualification. Both Weber and Ryan joined the rest of the Big Ten in underachieving … yet their first four tourney performances were good enough to put them fifth and 10th, respectively, after their fifth appearance.
Biggest advancers and decliners
For every advancer, there's an equal and nearly opposite decliner. Who were the biggest PASE losers of 2006? Bruce Pearl took the most precipitous fall. Before last year, he was a PASE golden boy, a half-game better than expectations from two wins in two seasons as a No. 12 seed. But when Pearl's second-seeded Volunteers got upended in Round 2, his PASE plummeted to -.136, a drop of .636. Steve Alford had a similar swoon. His No. 3 seed Hawkeyes had the dubious distinction of suffering the biggest first-round upset of 2006, a 64-63 loss to Northwestern State. Alford lost .528 off his PASE to wind up a -.199 underachiever. The only other coach to see his PASE slide more than half a game was Mike Anderson, the former UAB coach who took over the Missouri program. Before last year, Anderson was nearly a one-game-per-tourney overachiever, with two wins as a No. 9 seed in 2004 -- including an upset of top-seeded Kentucky -- and one win as a No. 11 seed. His ninth-seeded Blazers' first-round exit last year brought him down to earth. He's still a near half-game overperformer at +.447 but no longer is on pace to assault the top-10 list.
Coaching underachievers in the 64-team era
The biggest decliner among the bottom-10 PASE coaches was Kelvin Sampson. His No. 6 seed Sooners' winless 2006 tourney pushed him from fifth to third among modern era underperformers. The coach with the most improved PASE was Boston College coach Al Skinner. By notching two wins as a No. 4 seed, the Eagles pulled their coach from fourth place on the underperforming list to eighth.
Up-and-coming coaches
John Beilein has taken the opposite road to overachievement. Rather than scoring a "one-hit wonder" year, the West Virginia coach has built up his PASE on three straight overperforming tourneys. It started in 1998 when he steered No. 14 seed Richmond to a first-round upset, continued in 2005 with his seventh-seeded Mountaineers' three-win Elite Eight run and culminated last year with a Sweet 16 trip as a No. 6 seed. With a PASE of +.855, Beilein could challenge for the top spot among coaching overachievers if he has one more strong run in 2007.
Of the remaining upstart coaches, Mike Davis and Paul Hewitt share similar formulas for overachievement. Both have earned their positions as a result of one surprising run to the finals -- Davis in 2002 with the Hoosiers and Hewitt in 2004 with Georgia Tech. Since their breakthrough tourneys, neither has posted an overachieving postseason. Davis gave it a good try last year with a first-round win as a No. 6 seed, followed by a tough loss to No. 2 seed Gonzaga, but he actually lost .276 off his PASE for the effort.
In the fifth and sixth positions, Anderson and Thompson make an intriguing pair. Anderson was one of last year's biggest PASE decliners, and Thompson was one of the biggest advancers. Both will have high expectations placed on them this season. Anderson will be under pressure to turn around the Tigers' tourney fortunes; Thompson III will be looking to build on his Hoyas' surprising return to prominence.
The last decade tells a different story
The past 10 years have been especially kind to Calhoun. He was just ninth on the list of modern era overachieving coaches heading into this year. But two championships and three Elite Eight runs since 1998 make him the decade's top PASE performer with nearly a one-game-per-tourney overperformance against seed expectations.
The other coaches who overlap on the 22- and 10-year lists are Pitino, Izzo, Weber, Donovan, Gary Williams and Ryan. None of them, however, has made more than a single position change -- up or down -- in the rankings. The three additions to the 10-year list are Davis, Hewitt and Howland, whose run to the 2006 finals turned him from an underachiever to a top PASE performer.
The past decade's list of the top 10 underachieving coaches is more volatile than that of the overachievers. Two 22-year underperforming coaches, Dave Odom and Rick Barnes, escaped the 10-year list. They were replaced by Rick Stansbury and Romar. Three coaches changed six positions from the all-time modern era to the past decade's rankings. Sampson and Charlotte's Bobby Lutz improved six places to nearly lift themselves out of the PASE basement, and Bob Huggins posted seven underperforming tourneys in nine appearances to wind up as the biggest PASE underachiever of the last 10 years.
On the basis of overall tournament record, modern era and past decade PASE, and number of championships, only four coaches are even worth considering in the "best tourney coach" debate: Pitino, Izzo, Calhoun and Krzyzewski. (Despite his modern era PASE leadership, Fisher has too much baggage and too little recent success to make the grade.)
Pitino has the second-best tourney record, the second-best modern-era PASE behind Fisher, the third-best 10-year PASE and one championship. He's a notch better than Izzo, whose résumé includes the third-best tourney record, third-best overall PASE, second-best 10-year PASE and one championship.
Calhoun's fourth-place tourney record and ninth-place modern era PASE aren't up to the records of Pitino and Izzo, but he has come on strong in the past decade with the best PASE performance and two championships. I rate him a shade better than Pitino.
Krzyzewski boasts the best tourney record and fourth-best PASE of the modern era, along with three championships -- the most of any coach in the past 22 years. Although his PASE has languished in recent years, he was saddled with the highest average seed (1.3) and nine more expected wins (30.1) than any coach. For this year, at least, Krzyzewski earns the nod over Calhoun as the best tourney coach of the modern era. One more early exit, though -- or one more strong performance by any of his three closest contenders -- and Coach K might get knocked off his perch.
Freelance writer Pete Tiernan has been studying the NCAA Tournament for 17 years. E-mail him here. Or go to www.bracketscience.com and check out the BracketMaster, which lets you do your own bracket analysis. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||