WSJ on NCAA Basketball Coaching Pedigrees

[dcpony]

Interesting story on basketball coaches who mentor assistant coaches that go on to become sucessful head coaches.

The story notes Coach K and Roy Willams are among the worst. The story also notes Roy Williams mentorship of Coach Doherty. Lets hope he succeeds inspite of Roy Williams influence.




Wall Street Journal
Good Coach, Bad Mentor
Why some top college-hoops coaches are better teachers than others
By DARREN EVERSON
March 17, 2007; Page P8

On the basketball court, coach Roy Williams is something of a legend. First with Kansas and now with North Carolina, Mr. Williams has taken teams to the NCAA tournament 18 straight seasons. But as the de facto CEO of basketball operations at those schools, Mr. Williams has fallen short in at least one key area: developing the managers under him.

While Mr. Williams is a March Madness regular, his six most prominent former assistants have had a collective 14 appearances in the tournament in their combined 50 years of coaching.

THE BACKGROUND CHECK


See some of the head coaches with the strongest coaching trees -- and some with the weakest.Just like in the corporate world, where some companies are better than others at churning out standout CEOs, some basketball programs are better than others at grooming good head coaches. And as a look at the teams in this year's NCAA tournament shows, that skill doesn't always correlate with the coach's fame. Former Butler and Nebraska coach Barry Collier had only three tournament appearances in 17 seasons before resigning at Nebraska last year. But he has more to crow about when it comes to his former pupils -- he helped groom Ohio State coach Thad Matta and current Butler coach Todd Lickliter, two rising stars who both made the tournament this season.

Mr. Williams, whose North Carolina team plays in the NCAA tournament Saturday, didn't respond to requests for comment.

At a time when the salaries of college-hoops coaches are growing rapidly -- compensation for head coaches in the major conferences now routinely tops $1 million -- a coach's pedigree is an underappreciated area. When schools hire head coaches, they tend to give points to candidates that have served under famous head coaches -- but not necessarily to how that coach's other protégés have fared.

"I just don't think they think that far down the list of analytics," says Paul Swangard, managing director of the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center at the University of Oregon. "It's built on reputation, not science, and I guess people have made bad decisions based on that." Arizona State athletic director Lisa Love says she isn't aware of athletic directors crunching the numbers on a head coach's "coaching tree" before hiring a former assistant.


Who's Your Daddy: Rick Pitino (left) has groomed a number of standout head coaches, but Lute Olson has a spottier mentoring record.
On paper, Tommy Amaker looked to Seton Hall like the ideal candidate. Mr. Amaker learned the ropes at Duke under Mike Krzyzewski, who has won three NCAA titles. But in 10 years as a head coach -- four at Seton Hall and six at Michigan -- Mr. Amaker, a former star guard, has made the postseason tournament only once. Michigan didn't respond to requests for comment about its hiring decisions.

One reason some of these coaches don't perform like their masters, according to athletic directors and others, is that basketball assistants don't always get the depth of training that their counterparts in other sports get. In football, for example, it isn't uncommon to see figurehead head coaches who delegate much of the game strategy to their subordinates. And professional baseball teams have minor-league affiliates that they routinely use to give inexperienced coaches some seasoning. Those apprenticeships tend to be deep and long -- it can be years before an assistant in those sports gets his first head-coaching job.

In basketball, on the other hand, assistants are more apt to get pigeon-holed in narrower roles, says Herb Sendek, the coach at Arizona State. And they don't always have to wait as long for a shot at the top job.

College basketball coaching staffs consist of four coaches, one head coach and three assistants. Some head coaches, of course, are known for giving their assistants more responsibility.

Jeff Van Gundy, now head coach of the NBA's Houston Rockets, got his feet wet at Providence under coach Rick Pitino. Despite his position, in which he was responsible for more menial jobs like checking up on players' class attendance and coordinating travel, Mr. Van Gundy recalls also being expected to bring new game strategies and help coach on the floor in practice. Plus, Mr. Pitino would hold coaches accountable for mistakes in front of the entire team -- a practice that made the assistants uncomfortable but which Mr. Van Gundy says was invaluable to their development.

Mr. Pitino has one of the most impressive coaching trees in all of college basketball -- one that is both broad (19 of his former assistants and players have become college head coaches) -- and deep. Florida coach Billy Donovan, who is going for his second straight national championships this year, was a former Pitino player and assistant. Kentucky coach Tubby Smith, who also has a national title and has reached the tournament 14 straight seasons, is an ex-Pitino assistant as well. So is Ralph Willard, the Holy Cross head coach who qualified for his sixth NCAA tournament appearance this season.

Meanwhile, despite 34 hugely successful seasons as a Division I coach, Arizona coach Lute Olson has produced few notable protégés. The list of graduates of the Lute Olson academy of coaching includes such obscure names as Jessie Evans (San Francisco), Phil Johnson (ex-San Jose State) and Ken Burmeister (ex-Texas-San Antonio). The Olson coaching tree also has been beset by ill fortune: Former Denver coach Floyd Theard died at 40 in 1985, while ex-Northwestern coach Ricky Byrdsong was murdered in 1999.

But perhaps the most glaring example of great success on the court and a lack of it in mentoring assistants is Mr. Krzyzewski, Duke's Hall of Fame coach. While any coach would be hard-pressed to match his accomplishments -- three national titles and 23 NCAA tournament appearances in the last 24 years -- several of Mr. Krzyzewski's exes have had difficulty just holding onto their jobs. Bob Bender, Quin Snyder and Tim O'Toole -- all former Krzyzewski assistants -- have lost or resigned their posts in recent years. Mike Brey of Notre Dame, another of Mr. Krzyzewski's assistants, had a renaissance season this year, winning the Big East's coach of the year award and reaching the NCAA tournament, but only after missing it the previous three seasons.

Sports-information officials at both Duke and Arizona said the coaches were busy with the tournament and wouldn't be able to comment for this article.

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The Background Check
Some of the head coaches with the strongest coaching trees -- and some with the weakest.

COACH/SCHOOL NOTABLE PROTEGES COMMENT
BEST MENTORS
Rick Pitino/Louisville Billy Donovan (Florida)
Tubby Smith (Kentucky)
Jeff Van Gundy (Houston Rockets) Made Bernadette Mattox the first female Division 1 assistant coach on a men's team.
Herb Sendek/Arizona State Charlie Coles (Miami Univ.)
Thad Matta (Ohio State)
Sean Miller (Xavier) Was part of a staff at Kentucky under Coach Pitino that included four future prominent head coaches.
Jim Calhoun/Connecticut Karl Hobbs (George Washington)
Dave Leitao (Virginia)
Glen Miller (Penn) Although Mr. Calhoun missed the tournament this year, four of his proteges made it.
Jim Boeheim/Syracuse Rick Pitino (Louisville)
Tim Welsh (Providence)
Ralph Willard (Holy Cross) Has spent entire college-basketball careeer at Syracuse -- first as a player, then an assistant, and now a head coach.
Tom Izzo/Michigan State Tom Crean (Marquette)
Stan Heath (Arkansas)
Stan Joplin (Toledo) Mr. Izzo met Mr. Crean in the first round of this year's tournament and Mr. Izzo beat his former assistant handily (61-49).
WORST MENTORS
Roy Williams/North Carolina Matt Doherty (SMU)
Jerry Green (ex-Tennessee)
Kevin Stallings (Vanderbilt) Mr. Williams took over at NC after Mr. Doherty faltered there, winning only 10 of his last 32 regular-season ACC games.
Tubby Smith/Kentucky Shawn Finney (ex-Tulane)
Ron Jirsa (ex-Marshall)
Mike Sutton (Tennessee Tech) Mr. Jirsa was sacked after only two seasons at Georgia -- and fired again earlier this week by Marshall.
Lute Olson/Arizona Ricky Byrdsong (ex-Northwestern)
Jay John (Oregon State)
Kevin O'Neill (ex-Toronto Raptors) The Olson coaching tree has been marked by misfortune: Mr. Byrdsong was murdered, while Floyd Theard died of a heart attack.
Mike Krzyzewski/Duke Tommy Amaker (Michigan)
Mike Brey (Notre Dame)
Quin Snyder (ex-Missouri) Mr. Brey has had a renaissance season, but otherwise Coach K's protégés continue to struggle.
Bob Knight/Texas Tech Steve Alford (Iowa)
Mike Davis (UAB)
Dan Dakich (ex-Bowling Green) Former Knight players have in general had more success as head coaches than his exassistants. Coach K is the big exception.

Write to Darren Everson at [email protected]1