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Rock Chalk Talk: Basketball
Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage
Anything pertaining to basketball: college, pro, HS, recruiting, TV coverage
The 10 best men's college basketball coaches of all-time| Erick Smith, USAToday
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2 years 10 months ago - 2 years 10 months ago #27199
by porthawk
Good read, HE.
I'm sad to say that I'm not familiar at all with Branch McCracken or Phil Woolpert.
I shared the article and your analysis with a friend of mine (gave you credit, of course
) and this is what he wrote back to me. (He's a Michigan fan.):
I'm sad to say that I'm not familiar at all with Branch McCracken or Phil Woolpert.
I shared the article and your analysis with a friend of mine (gave you credit, of course
) and this is what he wrote back to me. (He's a Michigan fan.):Interesting list. I thought of old-timers like Henry Iba and John McClendon. It’s always hard to compare eras and you can’t simply count championships.
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2 years 10 months ago - 2 years 10 months ago #27215
by HawkErrant
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." - Mark Twain "Innocents Abroad"
[I'm posting this because CJ is experiencing technical difficulties with the board.
Here ya go, mate! - HE]
CorpusJayhawk writes:
You know I couldn't let this go without putting in my 2 cents worth. Since I acquired the game data back to 1950 I can add a quantitative dimension to this analysis that I'm not sure anyone else can match. I assume KenPom may have power ratings back that far but I don't think anyone else does. There are literally infinite methodologies you can use to rank coaches. I have chosen one that seems reasonable to me given the level of time I had to do this analysis. Here is a quick off the top of my head metrics one could employ in ranking coaches.
Quantitative
1. Games won
2. Winning % with some minimum number of games won
3. Actual games won versus probabilistic projection
4. Average Team Rating
5. National championships
6. Final Fours
7. Conference championships
8. Any of 1, 2 or 3 for NCAA games
Qualitative
9. Impact on the game (Phog Allen would have to rank top 3 and likely No. 1 in this category)
10. Reputation in the profession for player development
11. Reputation in the profession for strategy and X's and O's (a la Larry Brown)
I'm sure there are many others that I did not think of but this list likely catches the biggies. Then there is the weighting of each of these. Do you put a high weight on National Championships or are you more focused on the guy actually want on the sidelines if you had only 1 game to play. Do you place a premium on longevity or what they accomplish in the time they are coaching? Do you more heavily weight NCAA tourney games on a per game basis? There are infinite ways to do this. So let me explain what I did. I am not trying to say it is better or more preferred. It is simply what I could do very quickly and more or less seemed reasonable to me.
1. I limited the list to coaches who have won 492 games. Then I treated everyone on the list equal. I did not give a premium for longevity beyond the 500 game metric. My rationale is that longevity is function of three things, how young you were when you got your first HC job, how good you are and how long you decide to stick around. Roy Williams retired at 70, not because he had to but because he wanted to. Coach K has decided to go until 75. Some coaches are well into their 30's or even into the 40's when they get that first lucky break. Others manage it early 30's or occasionally in their 20's. My argument is that if you have won 500 games you have proven that you can win consistently. Thus there is no premium for longevity or wins beyond making the list. Cutting this list off at 1950, there are 54 coaches who make this list. These are the Big 54. Of course, there are coaches that will definitely be top 100 prior to 1950, namely Adolph Rupp and Phog Allen. Possible a few others. If you are wondering why 491 and not 500 it was to include Adolph Rupp. Even though his other metrics were from teams from 1950 on.
I used 3 metrics to calculate my coach rating.
2. The 1st metric is win%. After all, this is kind of the overall goal, to win as many games as possible. The 54 coaches on the list ranged from 83.2% (Mark Few) to 55.7% (Jeff Jones). I weighted this with a weight of 1 (the lowest of the three metrics). The reason being that a guy like Mark Few (who rates out very highly) does not play the strength of schedule. This is true of many of the coaches on the list. The inherent weakness of win% is it ignores SOS. It is still very important, afterall it made my list of top three metrics to build my rating. Self is at 76.2% ranked 8th in the list of 54.
3. Average team rating is my 2nd metric. This is unique to my data set. This is essentially the adjusted point per possession differential for every team a coach had. When I say adjusted, it is adjusted for SOS (Strength of schedule) and for SOS (strength of season). This is my rating for each team each year. The best coach is the coach that builds the best team. This is a direct measurement of the average rating of the teams a coach had over the years. I gave this a weight of 2. The 54 coaches varied from Roy Williams at 0.286 to Jeff Jones at 0.006. Obviously they were all in positive territory which makes sense given these are the best of the best. Self is at 0.247 ranked 6th among the 54 coaches.
4. The third metric is a little bit more complicated but one I place a high emphasis on giving it a weight of 3. It is a calculation of the ratio of the number of games a coach actually won to the number of games a coach should have won given his team rating and the actual schedule they played. This is sort of my attempt to find a metric that gets to the strategic skill or X's and O's skill of a coach. The range for the 54 coaches is Lou Carnesecca at 1.086 to Hugh Durham at 0.999. Self is at 1.075 ranked 3rd among the 54 coaches.
Okay, before I give divulge the 54 ranked in order, let me give you a list of guys who did not make the list but had some impressive metrics and would make the top 20 if they were on the list.
Ed Junker (1.082)
Tony Bennett (0.675)
Thad Matta (0.667)
Bo Ryan (0.651)
Chris Beard (0.525)
Jamie Dixon (0.524)
Sean Miller (0.511)
Matt Painter (0.497)
Chris Mack (0.442)
Scott Drew (0.375)
Harry Combes (0.353)
Now for the list. But let me add that Adolph Rupp and John Wooden both coached prior to 1950. I have 6 in common with the list in the article just not in the same order. I do not have the following in the top 10.
Bobby Knight (12th) - Bobby had a competitive average team rating and win ratio but his win% was mediocre at 70%
Jim Calhoun 35th) -- Low win% and average team rating. I see no way he is a top 10 coach unless you place a very high weight on NC's.
Rick Pitino (13th) -- Really no great metric, just all pretty good.
Denny Crum (21st) -- Low average team ratings.
Who replaced these guys in the top 10?
Tom Izzo (5th)
Bill Self (6th)
John Calipari (8th)
Mark Few (9th)
And now for the list.
Here ya go, mate! - HE]
CorpusJayhawk writes:
You know I couldn't let this go without putting in my 2 cents worth. Since I acquired the game data back to 1950 I can add a quantitative dimension to this analysis that I'm not sure anyone else can match. I assume KenPom may have power ratings back that far but I don't think anyone else does. There are literally infinite methodologies you can use to rank coaches. I have chosen one that seems reasonable to me given the level of time I had to do this analysis. Here is a quick off the top of my head metrics one could employ in ranking coaches.
Quantitative
1. Games won
2. Winning % with some minimum number of games won
3. Actual games won versus probabilistic projection
4. Average Team Rating
5. National championships
6. Final Fours
7. Conference championships
8. Any of 1, 2 or 3 for NCAA games
Qualitative
9. Impact on the game (Phog Allen would have to rank top 3 and likely No. 1 in this category)
10. Reputation in the profession for player development
11. Reputation in the profession for strategy and X's and O's (a la Larry Brown)
I'm sure there are many others that I did not think of but this list likely catches the biggies. Then there is the weighting of each of these. Do you put a high weight on National Championships or are you more focused on the guy actually want on the sidelines if you had only 1 game to play. Do you place a premium on longevity or what they accomplish in the time they are coaching? Do you more heavily weight NCAA tourney games on a per game basis? There are infinite ways to do this. So let me explain what I did. I am not trying to say it is better or more preferred. It is simply what I could do very quickly and more or less seemed reasonable to me.
1. I limited the list to coaches who have won 492 games. Then I treated everyone on the list equal. I did not give a premium for longevity beyond the 500 game metric. My rationale is that longevity is function of three things, how young you were when you got your first HC job, how good you are and how long you decide to stick around. Roy Williams retired at 70, not because he had to but because he wanted to. Coach K has decided to go until 75. Some coaches are well into their 30's or even into the 40's when they get that first lucky break. Others manage it early 30's or occasionally in their 20's. My argument is that if you have won 500 games you have proven that you can win consistently. Thus there is no premium for longevity or wins beyond making the list. Cutting this list off at 1950, there are 54 coaches who make this list. These are the Big 54. Of course, there are coaches that will definitely be top 100 prior to 1950, namely Adolph Rupp and Phog Allen. Possible a few others. If you are wondering why 491 and not 500 it was to include Adolph Rupp. Even though his other metrics were from teams from 1950 on.
I used 3 metrics to calculate my coach rating.
2. The 1st metric is win%. After all, this is kind of the overall goal, to win as many games as possible. The 54 coaches on the list ranged from 83.2% (Mark Few) to 55.7% (Jeff Jones). I weighted this with a weight of 1 (the lowest of the three metrics). The reason being that a guy like Mark Few (who rates out very highly) does not play the strength of schedule. This is true of many of the coaches on the list. The inherent weakness of win% is it ignores SOS. It is still very important, afterall it made my list of top three metrics to build my rating. Self is at 76.2% ranked 8th in the list of 54.
3. Average team rating is my 2nd metric. This is unique to my data set. This is essentially the adjusted point per possession differential for every team a coach had. When I say adjusted, it is adjusted for SOS (Strength of schedule) and for SOS (strength of season). This is my rating for each team each year. The best coach is the coach that builds the best team. This is a direct measurement of the average rating of the teams a coach had over the years. I gave this a weight of 2. The 54 coaches varied from Roy Williams at 0.286 to Jeff Jones at 0.006. Obviously they were all in positive territory which makes sense given these are the best of the best. Self is at 0.247 ranked 6th among the 54 coaches.
4. The third metric is a little bit more complicated but one I place a high emphasis on giving it a weight of 3. It is a calculation of the ratio of the number of games a coach actually won to the number of games a coach should have won given his team rating and the actual schedule they played. This is sort of my attempt to find a metric that gets to the strategic skill or X's and O's skill of a coach. The range for the 54 coaches is Lou Carnesecca at 1.086 to Hugh Durham at 0.999. Self is at 1.075 ranked 3rd among the 54 coaches.
Okay, before I give divulge the 54 ranked in order, let me give you a list of guys who did not make the list but had some impressive metrics and would make the top 20 if they were on the list.
Ed Junker (1.082)
Tony Bennett (0.675)
Thad Matta (0.667)
Bo Ryan (0.651)
Chris Beard (0.525)
Jamie Dixon (0.524)
Sean Miller (0.511)
Matt Painter (0.497)
Chris Mack (0.442)
Scott Drew (0.375)
Harry Combes (0.353)
Now for the list. But let me add that Adolph Rupp and John Wooden both coached prior to 1950. I have 6 in common with the list in the article just not in the same order. I do not have the following in the top 10.
Bobby Knight (12th) - Bobby had a competitive average team rating and win ratio but his win% was mediocre at 70%
Jim Calhoun 35th) -- Low win% and average team rating. I see no way he is a top 10 coach unless you place a very high weight on NC's.
Rick Pitino (13th) -- Really no great metric, just all pretty good.
Denny Crum (21st) -- Low average team ratings.
Who replaced these guys in the top 10?
Tom Izzo (5th)
Bill Self (6th)
John Calipari (8th)
Mark Few (9th)
And now for the list.
"Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." - Mark Twain "Innocents Abroad"
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