Two second-year head coaches are among the top 25 rated.
They are younger than most of the others recognized in the CBS Sports preseason college basketball head coach ratings, but Hubert Davis and Arizona’s Tommy Lloyd are getting extra credit for their pedigree.
Davis erased much of the doubt that followed ascending to Carolina’s head coaching job by the strong finish of his first team advancing to the Final Four. But it is clear now that as a basketball lifer, Hubert was prepared and thus has been rated by CBS Sports at No. 19 after just one season.
At 51, he took over with nine years under Roy Williams and 12 seasons as a highly-respected NBA player. Certainly, five years covering college basketball for ESPN exposed him to dozens of other programs across the country and more basketball knowledge.
From the days of Frank McGuire and Dean Smith, UNC assistant coaches have toiled in near anonymity at the elbows of Hall of Famers. But Smith proved an able successor to McGuire as Bill Guthridge and Williams did to Smith and, so far, as Hubert has to Ol’ Roy.
The 47-year-old Lloyd, rated No. 18, led Arizona to a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, which may have been a shock to some for a first-year head coach, but not those who knew his resume included 20 years with Mark Few at Gonzaga. And Lloyd also hired chief assistant Steve Robinson, who helped Williams reach all nine of his Final Fours at Kansas and Carolina.
Among the CBS top 25 are veteran coaches in their 50s, such as No. 1-ranked Bill Self and sixth-rated Tony Bennett, and their 60s, like Tom Izzo, Kelvin Sampson, Rick Barnes and Bob Huggins; plus septuagenarians Rick Pitino, Jim Larrañaga, Leonard Hamilton and Jim Boeheim.
A few of the acclaimed head coaches also have been at one school their entire careers, such as Boeheim and Few. But clearly, that is not the majority of coaches who have earned places in these prestigious rankings by having successes at more than one stop.
At the top of that list is Iona’s Pitino, who led teams to Final Fours at Providence, Kentucky and Louisville, winning national championships at the latter two, although the last one was vacated by the NCAA for highly-publicized recruiting violations.
Like almost everything else about college rankings, winning is more important than obeying the rules.
Featured image via Todd Melet
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our biweekly newsletter.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines