Much of the talk last week about Gary Williams’ replacement centered on the relative attractiveness of the Maryland basketball head coaching position. It was interesting to see where people fell on this. Some folks viewed the job as a borderline top ten slot, citing its rabid fan base, its top-tier facilities, its conference affiliation and its location in a recruiting hotbed as evidence supporting that contention. Others suggested that the position was really more in line with a top 25 ranking, a place where fans have unreasonable expectations and league affiliation (read: Duke and UNC) actually hinder the program’s status more than it helps. It’s an interesting debate, and it got us thinking about how we would rank the top twenty or so jobs in college basketball as of today.
After thinking about it for a few days, we broke the twenty out into five groupings, as shown below. We view the jobs within each grouping as roughly equal to each other, using the inexact criteria that coaches would be unlikely to jump ship within a grouping, but would be heavily enticed to do so in a grouping above theirs. Note the word, “inexact.” Each individual has different motivations and will make professional decisions on criteria distinct and separate from ours (e.g., Billy Donovan turning down Kentucky twice, and Jay Wright/Jamie Dixon turning down Maryland). But this analysis doesn’t take the current coach into consideration; this is meant to be an examination of the attractiveness of the job itself. Feel free to tell us how stupid we are in the comments below.
Coaching Pinnacles
These five positions are destination jobs that guarantee big paychecks, huge followings, and, unless an elite NBA job comes calling, an expectation of long-term stability. They represent all but one of the top six programs of all-time, and the daily pressure on each of these fellows to succeed at the highest level is among the most excruciating in collegiate sports.
1. Duke. Possesses unbelievable facilities with a national brand synonymous with long-term, sustained success. Every college coach in America would give this job a glance if offered.
2. Kentucky. The only reason UK isn’t #1 is because dealing with the expectations of the always-rabid/sometimes-insane fanbase turns some coaches off on the job. Otherwise, everything you need to succeed is in place.
3. North Carolina. Only slightly less rabid of a fanbase than UK, but equally remarkable in resources, national support and pedigree. The only negative is a prevailing sense of the coach having to be a Carolina “insider” to succeed there.
4. Kansas. Certainly few complaints here, buf it the top four jobs were available in the same year and three elite coaches were in the running, KU would be the odd school out of that musical chairs equation.
5. UCLA. Sigh… this job is still elite regardless of a juxtaposed fan base that on one hand is apathetic while on the other expecting Final Four and national championship banners every year.
The Football Schools of Eternal Comfort
These three jobs are roughly interchangeable. They represent most of the amenities and professional respect of the above five positions with approximately 1% of the same pressure to perform. Their coaches make massive amounts of money, have great facilities and enjoy fertile recruiting bases, but basketball remains a distant second banana on these three campuses and is unlikely to change soon. So long as their teams don’t completely tank, they have better job security than just about anyone.
6. Ohio State. OSU moves ahead of the other two in this grouping because the fans are generally more supportive of its program than at UT or UF and everything else — resources, recruiting, etc. — is pretty much a wash.
7. Texas. Retirement job. The pipeline of talent is such that the Texas coach can win 20-25 games every year in perpetuity with an occasional NCAA run and the vast majority of UT fans will be satisfied, even happy, with their program’s success.
8. Florida. Why take a Kentucky job with ridiculous levels of expectation and pressure on an annual basis when you can coast with good teams year after year after year after year at Florida? The theme among all of the schools in this grouping is long-term comfort without constant pressure to win a national title.
The Third Tier of Hope & Optimism
This tier of all basketball schools wants very badly to break into the top five grouping, but for a number of structural, historical and competitive reasons, they are unlikely to do so. In most cases, a given coach at one of these six programs would have to give a long, hard look at an opening in the two groupings above them. It’s no guarantee that they’d leave, but given the resources, fan support and mystique of the above eight, they would all strongly consider it.
9. Louisville. This fanbase is larger than you think and its coach has the backing of a university in a veritable arms race with the school sixty miles to the east. It’ll never become “Big Brother,” but it’s a top ten job in this sport.
10. Syracuse. Far and away in the worst location of the top ten (perhaps even the top twenty), but its decades-long pipeline into NYC and its cachet as New York’s team has made the SU job very attractive to any future coach who might aspire to follow a legend.
11. Arizona. The fanbase is relatively small but very supportive, and the location is hard to beat for many coaches fond of playing golf year-round and enjoying a direct talent pipeline into the fertile SoCal prep training grounds.
12. Michigan State. Spartan basketball is much more than just Tom Izzo, and the connection to talent in Detroit and surrounding environs is one that makes this job highly desirable should it ever open again.
13. Connecticut. UConn has done very well to siphon off some of Syracuse’s support in the Big Apple, but its location in out-of-the-way Storrs makes it more difficult than it should be to sell this as a top-tier job.
14. Maryland. The Terp program has elite resource availability and a strong if not dominant fanbase, but its conference affilation with two of the top three jobs in all of college basketball make this a tougher pitch than it otherwise would be.
Faded Glory
This is a special category for a job that was ranked among the elite but has been tainted by so much inconsistency and mediocrity over the last two decades so as to render it much less prestigious than it once was.
15. Indiana. The Indiana position simply doesn’t hold the same national weight that it once did, although if any school could find its mojo and quickly rise back up into the elite grouping, it’s obviously the Hoosiers.
They’re Trying…
This grouping of schools is interesting in that they’re all coveted jobs but each has at least one major weakness that makes them less attractive than the tiers above them. Some weaknesses are bigger problems to solve than others, but none can be ignored.
16. Georgetown. The Hoyas still have a significant but dwindling national recruiting presence left over from Hoya Paranoia and the Zo/Answer days, but its basketball facilities are frankly not commensurate with an elite job.
17. Villanova. VU is Georgetown without the national recruiting power, although its on-campus facilities are better than their Big East friends to the south. Like GU, though, playing in an off-campus NBA arena several miles away is not ideal.
18. Memphis. The only major problem that Memphis suffers is its affiliation with Conference USA. It’s a top-level program in terms of resources and support, but until it finds a major conference to attach itself to, there will remain issues of perceived irrelevance.
19. Purdue. Purdue suffers from a bit of “little brother” syndrome (with in-state Indiana ever-present) and has a reputation as a penny-pincher when it comes to paying their coaches and upgrading facilities (although Mackey is due to complete renovations in time for the 2011-12 season).
20. Gonzaga. We had to put a mid-major in here somewhere, and we chose GU over Butler and Xavier because the Zags have built such an avid national following and recruiting base (internationally, even) that this will be a plum destination position should Mark Few ever decide to leave it.
Honorable Mention: Pittsburgh, Illinois, Washington, Butler, Missouri.
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1 2 3 Next »Whoa, if you're going to create a category specifically for elite teams down on their luck for 20 years, you HAVE to include N.C. State.
The program that gave birth to the ACC, tremendous resources, and in the span from 73-83, they won two national titles and fielded one of the most dominant college basketball teams ever, led by perhaps the greatest college basketball player ever (David Thompson). Another national title would give us three and put us in some very, very elite company.
Hell, all we heard from pundits nationally during the coaching search was "N.C. State USED to be a really great job, but not anymore..."
Yeah, James, but Indiana has had flashes of brilliance in the past two decades, and they were in the title game in the past decade. I don't think anybody on earth would think of NC State as on par with Indiana in any way.
Okay, one nit to pick: Arizona has a relatively small fan base? I wonder what you mean by relatively. In terms of basketball attendance, Arizona has been #1 in the Pac-10 for 27 straight seasons, despite playing in a smaller market than USC, UCLA, ASU, UW, Cal, and Stanford. Also ranked top 20 nationally for 25 years. I'd say we have a huge fan base relative to the size of our city.
Duke is not #1 fpr a very simple reason : Who would you rather follow, Roy Williams or Coach K?
I also think it's rather silly to put a mid-major job on the list. If you're going to put one, though, it has to be Xavier. Coaching at Xavier seems to pretty much guarantee a coach the status as the next big thing.
WakeFan...
"But this analysis doesn’t take the current coach into consideration; this is meant to be an examination of the attractiveness of the job itself."
FOLLOWING K isn't in the criteria for their list. That K has built Duke into a top 5 consideration for best job considering where he started in the basement is a tribute in itself.
I disagree with Duke being number one. Aside from K, Duke is probably in the "Third tier of hope and optimism" range historically, we really don't know how much of their "Pinnacle" status is due to Coach K.
Also, you don't elaborate why Kansas would be seen as less attractive than the other three. Had you said built-in recruiting base, I would buy it, but that's all that separates it from UK, UNC, and Duke. Facilities and fan bases are comparable, they play in a stronger conference than UK and weaker than UNC and Duke (on average). And it seems to me that history and tradition weigh heavily toward Kansas. Eight men have held the head coach position at Kansas in over 100 years, fewer than any other school on this list, and what coach wouldn't want to step into a legacy that can be traced directly to Phog Allen and James Naismith?
Trying to respond to everyone here; thank you heartily for all the comments. Keep 'em coming...
@ James C. - I think we've seen in the last two coaching searches just how attractive the NC State job actually is. Put simply, it's not. If this were 1990, the job would have been at or near the top 15; nowadays I'm not convinced that it's top 40. Despite its troubles, IU is still a marquee name in the sport and the job is a plum one, but it has absolutely been devalued in recent years (it would have been top five not all that long ago).
@ Mark P. - mainly, I was referring to its national draw. Most of the other schools ahead of it have a national following to a certain extent. I'm not sure that Arizona has much of that. I was at the 1997 F4 and frankly UA's turnout was incredibly small (similar to UConn this year in Houston).
@ WakeFan - right, Wilko nails it in his response. Not part of the criteria. I believe that if both UNC and the Duke jobs were open at the same time and both were going for the same coach (i.e., Stevens, or Alexander SuperCoach in the future), Duke would get him. The difference between Duke, UK and the UNC jobs in my estimation is that the former doesn't have an entire state of nuts (I say that endearingly) breathing down the coach's neck constantly; in a weird way, there's actually a little less day-to-day pressure as the top guy at Duke, but with every bit the same amount of resources and recruiting prowess as the other two (in fact, perhaps more).
Regarding Gonzaga/Xavier, as I said, I wanted to put a mid-major in the list. You can remove it if you like and add Pitt or someone else. Still, the fact that XU loses its coach nearly every four years isn't necessarily a good thing to me. I think Gonzaga may have moved past XU in that it can be a destination job for the right person -- that's what Few has built there. I don't ever see XU becoming a destination job; thus, why I ranked them lower.
@ Matt - right, but that's what we have. K has built that job into the CEO position at Google, essentially. It's a plum spot, and I'd argue the most plum spot for anyone in the business. See my analysis in the previous comment as to why -- I think Duke would get the guy if it came down to a competition for one coach.
As for KU, certainly the recruiting base is problematic, and feel free to disagree with me, but I believe that the national perception of KU basketball, while elite, is simply not at the rarefied air levels of Duke, UK and UNC. I also feel that this is true within the business of coaching. It's right there, and should be in that top group, but I do not believe that KU would be able to out-recruit any of the above three schools for a coach. Again, my opinion. Reasonable minds will differ, that's what makes it fun.
But following a legend is part of "the job itself." Not sure the author meant that K isn't part of the criteria. Considering the sentence it followed about Dixon, etc. turning down Maryland, I think the author means the list doesn't take into consideration the various and diverse personal/unique reasons each coach would have to like a certain job more or less. Perhaps I'm misreading it, though, as that's kind of a truism (since nobody should ever think "Jay Wright likes Villanova more than one would think" reflects on the merits of the Maryland job).
I suppose you could put "following a legend" under the heading of expectations. Roy Williams probably would have gone to UNC no matter what--and winning a title in his second year would have made him a smashing success regardless--but I imagine stepping in seemed more appealing when you have two joe's between you and direct comparison with the Dean.
Similarly, if Sean Miller had taken over in 2007 and failed to make the NCAA tournament, the fan base would have been screaming for his head on a pike. But taking over after three tumultuous years... and especially after a coaching search that, up until Miller changed his mind, makes the Maryland missteps seem like Bismarckian genius--we got turned down by Tim Floyd, TIM FLOYD--he had miles more rope than he would have had otherwise.
It makes a difference to recruits. I note that since UCF improved its facilities, the school is now landing recruits that otherwise would go to a major conference team.
@Bill: UCF is also involved in a possibly major recruiting scandal involving using an agent / runner as a recruiter.
I think the top four are virtually indistinguishable. Pick your poison: rabid fan base, following legend, Carolina "family", or recruiting disadvantage (and only two national titles). I know this comment is going to get drilled by KU fans, but I think it's interesting that KU's two NCAA titles came from an unconscious performance from Danny Manning (very similar in some ways to Kemba this year, if Kemba had had his Maui games in the Big Dance) and in 2008 when Memphis committed the worst choke. 2 titles are 2 titles, but for a school that's entrenched in tradition, KU doesn't have the modern dominant teams (ala Duke 1992 and 1999, UK 1996, UNC 2009) that the others do.
Really, this article just completely turn me off on this website - this being the first time I have visited. MSU a #12 job - behind Arizona and just above Maryland? Indiana at #15? Please... Go back to high school journalism class when you were warming the bench as a water boy I cant stand homers.
Hey Dick - who exactly are we a homer for?
Dick--
I'm not sure how our site (I didn't write the post, but I am an editor) comes off as being homers here. We are a national site that isn't affiliated with a team. It seems like you are from a Big Ten school (probably Michigan State) based on your comment. Personally I think you can make an argument within groups in almost any ranking system. How would you change the rankings? If you feel like Michigan State or Indiana should be in the top 5 I think you have a point to argue (even if I am guessing it would be a weak one), but if you think that 11-15 should be rearranged in some order that is understandable although I think it is a point of personal preference once you get down to small adjustments in the rankings.