Validity is a must…

With the resignation of Bobby Knight and now the dismissal of Kelvin Sampson a coaches true worth has come into question several times.  Bobby Knight is a true pillar of coaching in American history as one cannot write the history of college basketball without Knight and his discipline and motion offense, much like you cannot omit Wooden and the dynasty or Smith and the four corners.  However, in terms of relevancy Sampson holds hire stock today as a coaching hire.  His teams win now, he recruits relevant talent, he produces W’s.  Yes he messed up and I have no intention of pardoning him for the massive screw up and complete disregard for the NCAA rules, but he is currently a more relevant hire than Knight. 

I’m sure at this point a lot of you all are thinking I’m a blasphemer, that Bob Knight is one of the best coaches ever and whatever else helps you sleep at night but please read on to gain an understanding for what truly makes a coach relevant.  Roy Williams, Billy Donovan, Jim Calhoun, Rick Barnes and Ben Howland are the most relevant coaches.  Guys such as Krzyzewski, Izzo and Gary Williams are all seeing their relevancy wane. 

The recipe for relevancy as far as coaching goes is through looking at the most recent five years of a career.  Don’t look back ten because that was a decade ago and the game has changed while looking back only two or three years doesn’t give enough time to account for dips in recruiting talent and players transitioning to the NBA.  Taking all that into account have a look at the college basketball landscape, a lot has changed in a very short period of time and while certain coaches dominated earlier time frames they have been unable to adapt to the current make up of the game.  Then there are those coaches that have been able to change their recruiting techniques as well as targets in order to land not only players that will knowingly satisfy only the one year before the NBA [Kevin Durant, Brandon Wright, Carmelo Anthony etc.] but also players who will stay two or three years to “build” a program capable of making a title run.  This is a delicate balancing act between getting players not capable of leaving early and acquiring talented players desiring a championship. 

The last five national champions have balanced this act quite favorably as Syracuse, UConn, North Carolina and Florida possessed players that had the skill and the talent to be NBA lottery picks but opted for school in order to win their championship.  In the case of Florida there players craved a championship bad enough to stay an extra year and win two before entering the NBA draft.  Toeing that line between leaving early for the draft and staying for the championship run is the essence of what big time college basketball has boiled down to.  In walking this tight rope coaches must recruit very carefully, over recruit and you’ve got talent sitting on the bench waiting to transfer out and leave you depleted, under recruit and you’re sitting there with a team full of guys that shouldn’t be playing on that level.  The relevancy of these coaches is solidified for another five years, with Boeheim’s waning fast as his team is poised to miss the tournament for the second consecutive year after the departure of Hakeem Warrick. 

On the flip side of the relevancy coin; Coach K, Tom Izzo and bringing up the very rear is Bobby Knight.  Knight hasn’t come close to winning anything in almost two decades and he failed miserably at taking Texas Tech from the cellar to mediocrity.  His lone accomplishment at Tech was a first round departure in the tournament.  Izzo and Coach K ruled the late 1990s and early 2000s however their teams, I fear, may be going the way of the dinosaur.  One shouldn’t find it surprising that neither of these coaches is significantly affected by the NBA draft as their players don’t possess the talent to leave early and need a four year college career to warrant their entry into the NBA.  While the control may be the most obvious issue; as both men control their programs with a Knight-esque iron fist, the fear of players leaving early [as K experienced with the William Avery, Corey Maggette and Elton Brand years] is possibly steering their recruiting towards the Drew Neitzel’s and Greg Paulus’ of the high school basketball world.  Sure they get Parade and McDonald’s all-Americans to campus but anyone taking a look at a Michael Beasley vs a Taylor King can tell which player is going to the Association and which will be loyal to K for 4 years. 

This isn’t necessarily an indictment of coaches that recruit players who will play four years, or who aren’t talent lightning rods more its a recipe for how to win big now in college basketball.  NBA caliber talent is necessary to make the leap from a Sweet 16 or an Elite 8 team to the Final Four and National Title contender.  Duke and Michigan State have great, competitive teams that belong in the top ten current programs in the nation, however, with their coaches philosophy they will not sniff a national title.  There is a reason mid-major programs don’t win titles and are happy with Sweet 16’s, they don’t have the NBA quality athletes that Kansas, UCLA or Florida has and now neither do big name schools like Duke and Michigan State. 

ItsFELDER