Barking up the wrong "tree"

[Chairman Moe]

I was reading an article about the collective record of Mike Krzyzewski's coaching "tree", as well as the success and/or failure of said coaches. Collectively the group has a winning percentage around 55%; the group averages about .8 wins per NCAA TOURNAMENT appearance; the group has never had a team of theirs get to the Final Four

We may have hired one of the "weaker branches" from Coach K's tree, but given the mediocre record of his legacies, was Pitt "barking up the wrong tree" to begin with? Rhetorical question, I know ... and sadly, there are none left from the Larry Brown tree, e.g.

But a question to ponder: Which current coach(es) are built for the long haul (a la Coach K) to perhaps produce the next wave of good, future head coaches?

 

[heybandguy]

A great question. The K tree having failures in the NCAAT is really quite interesting to me - not many places are the culture and legacy of Duke. I am not sure we will see the likes of K again. Self (Kansas) has been a head coach from the early 90's, but the only two assistants who went on that I remember from him are Manning and David Padgett (both because of being HC of ACC teams). Mark Few has been at Gonzaga since late 90s, and an assistant of his was just hired at Arizona. Longevity at one spot is a rarity in nearly any sport, but that certainly isn't the determiner to groom an assistant coach to be a head coach. K talked about seeking to hire assistants who wanted to be HCs in his book "Leading with the Heart".

 

[Voice of Danno]

I think the Baylor's Scott Drew could be interesting. Paul Mills at Oral Roberts had a run last year. N TX St's Grant McCasland was mentioned for some higher jobs after doing well at his present school. Jerome Tang is now at Kansas St.