Who is the best active coach to never make a Final Four?

[Sean Miller Fan]

Jamie Dixon???
Sean Miller???
Mark Few???

Who is the best former coach to never make a Final Four?

John Chaney???
Gene Keady???

 

[thebadby2]

Just on gut reaction and without any research, I'd go with Few.

Remarkable what he has consistently accomplished at a tiny private Catholic school in the Pacific Northwest.

You think Pitt isn't in fertile recruiting ground? Try Spokane WA.

 

[Atch]

He will join Knight fly fishing on the blue ribbon Montana trout streams.

 

[recruitsreadtheseboards]

Sean Miller

 

[ameoba defense]

Originally posted by Sean Miller Fan:
Jamie Dixon???
Sean Miller???
Mark Few???

Who is the best former coach to never make a Final Four?

John Chaney???
Gene Keady???

I recently read where every time Chaney reached the Elite 8, he had the highest possible seed waiting for him, four 1 seeds, and a 2 seed the year Temple was ranked #1 in the country. That is some bad luck to never have an upset result in having to play a relatively lower seed to reach the Final Four.

 

[JIMSOULS]

Current
Sean Miller -- Four Elite Eights and two Sweet Sixteens in 11 years as a head coach. He'll get there.

Former
Lefty Driesell -- His 786 wins are the most-ever by a coach that never made the Final Four. In 41 years of coaching, he went to four Elite Eights, four Sweet Sixteens, and one NIT championship, while making the NCAA tournament 13 times and the NIT eight. Driesell took all four schools he coached to the Big Dance, and is the only man to win 100 games at four different schools.

Bob Boyd -- This is mainly about the 13 years he spent at USC (1967-1979). Boyd had some excellent teams, yet took the Trojans to the NCAA Tournament only once (his final season). That's because those were the days when the conference winners were the only team allowed to go to the Big Dance. Boyd's best teams were blocked from the tourney by John Wooden's great UCLA teams. One year the Trojans finished 24-2 (both losses to UCLA) and ranked fifth, but didn't go to the Big Dance because hey finished second in the conference. His Trojan teams handed UCLA their first two losses at Pauley Pavillion.

Pete Carill -- Master strategist and deviser of the Princeton Offense, he won 514 games coaching the Tigers. Besides the textbook offense they played, Carill's teams were also noted for the tenacious defense they played. I've often wondered how Carill would have fared had he not been so loyal to Princeton. I attended all four of their games when they won the 1975 NIT. It was something to behold, and the Tigers scored quite a bit in those games. Princeton might have taken down unbeaten Rutgers in the following year's NCAA tourney had it not for a late missed one-and-one by Pete Molloy. As his career moved on, teams hated to schedule his Princeton teams and dreaded drawing them in the NCAA Tournament, Carill is a member of both the College Basketball and Naismith halls of fame. He also won 11 games at Lehigh, giving him 525 total wins. I believe he is third behind Driesell and Gene Keady (531) for most Division l wins without making a Final Four (John Chaney won 516 at Temple while Gonzaga's Mark Few has 438),

This post was edited on 4/3 9:14 PM by JIMSOULS

 

[ameoba defense]

Originally posted by JIMSOULS:

Current
Sean Miller -- Four Elite Eights and two Sweet Sixteens in 11 years as a head coach. He'll get there.

Former
Lefty Driesell -- His 786 wins are the most-ever by a coach that never made the Final Four. In 41 years of coaching, he went to four Elite Eights, four Sweet Sixteens, and one NIT championship, while making the NCAA tournament 13 times and the NIT eight. Driesell took all four schools he coached to the Big Dance, and is the only man to win 100 games at four different schools.

Bob Boyd -- This is mainly about the 13 years he spent at USC (1967-1979). Boyd had some excellent teams, yet took the Trojans to the NCAA Tournament only once (his final season). That's because those were the days when the conference winners were the only team allowed to go to the Big Dance. Boyd's best teams were blocked from the tourney by John Wooden's great UCLA teams. One year the Trojans finished 24-2 (both losses to UCLA) and ranked fifth, but didn't go to the Big Dance because hey finished second in the conference. His Trojan teams handed UCLA their first two losses at Pauley Pavillion.

Pete Carill -- Master strategist and deviser of the Princeton Offense, he won 514 games coaching the Tigers. Besides the textbook offense they played, Carill's teams were also noted for the tenacious defense they played. I've often wondered how Carill would have fared had he not been so loyal to Princeton. I attended all four of their games when they won the 1975 NIT. It was something to behold, and the Tigers scored quite a bit in those games. Princeton might have taken down unbeaten Rutgers in the following year's NCAA tourney had it not for a late missed one-and-one by Pete Molloy. As his career moved on, teams hated to schedule his Princeton teams and dreaded drawing them in the NCAA Tournament, Carill is a member of both the College Basketball and Naismith halls of fame. He also won 11 games at Lehigh, giving him 525 total wins. I believe he is third behind Driesell and Gene Keady (531) for most Division l wins without making a Final Four (John Chaney won 516 at Temple while Gonzaga's Mark Few has 438),

This post was edited on 4/3 9:14 PM by JIMSOULS

Carill was never going to make the Final Four at Princeton once the 70's ended. The days of powerful Ivy teams ended after Penn made the Final Four in 1979.

 

[JIMSOULS]

True, but Carril remained a great coach. He did the best with the players he could get at Princeton.

 

[pittpitt]

Dixon, Miller, and Few seem like the obvious 3, but what about UVA's Tony Bennett and UCLA's Steve Alford?

Tony Bennett took over an ACC afterthought in 2009, and since then they've improved all 6 seasons he's been there (nearly impossible to do at any school in any situation) and have won the ACC two years in a row. In the past two tournaments, VA lost to Izzo's Michigan State twice by a total of 8 points. Any team winning the best conference twice in a row and who were barely bumped from the tournament both years is bound to make a FF sooner rather than later.

Steve Alford made Iowa relevant and New Mexico highly relevant (think about how crazy that is). Recently he took over a UCLA program that was clearly staggering and had a bunch of internal issues, which he quickly turned into 50 wins and two Sweet Sixteens over 2 seasons. He's recruited an absolutely killer frontcourt for next season, and he has all the resources to have much more success at UCLA than Iowa or NM ever experienced.

I'm not saying these two should definitely rank over Dixon, Miller, or Few, but I think the discussion is much closer to one about 5 guys than 3 guys.