10 best coaches in Big Ten men's basketball history

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MisterGopher said:
10. Purdue's Ward Lambert
9. Illinois' Lou Henson
8. Wisconsin's Bo Ryan
7. Michigan State's Jud Heathcote
6. Purdue's Matt Painter
5. Purdue's Gene Keady
4. Ohio State's Fred Taylor
3. Indiana's Branch McCracken
2. Michigan State's Tom Izzo
1. Indiana's Bob Knight

https://www.foxsports.com/stories/c...-best-coaches-big-ten-mens-basketball-history
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I really respect what Keady did at Purdue but having him ahead of Painter, Heathcote & Ryan is just flat out dumb.
 



A top ten accomplishment would have been Musselman’s first two teams winning consecutive Big Ten championships and then came the inexplicable loses at home to Iowa and at Northwestern to end the ‘73 season. The sight of Jim Brewer blocking Kevin Kunnert’s shot and the ball coming right back to Kunnert for a put-back game-winning shot nearly burned out my fourth grade eyes. Getting swept by Iowa that year was the most damnabie thing the Hawkeyes ever did to us.
 

go_gophers said:
I’m just commenting here to bump the “Fire Ben Johnson” off the top spot, but Gene Keady gets bonus points for looking exactly like his team’s mascot.
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This used to be a phenomenon we talked about often.

Clem looked like a gopher.
Tom Davis looked like a hawkeye.
Heathcoate had a spartan haircut.

Later on, Bo Ryan wasn't far off from a badger.
 


Ope3 said:
I really respect what Keady did at Purdue but having him ahead of Painter, Heathcote & Ryan is just flat out dumb.
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Agreed. Bo Ryan is way too low in general. As usual, people weight winning a national championship too much. Bo Ryan had a significantly higher winning percentage at Wisconsin than Fred Taylor and Branch McCracken had at their schools. Plus Taylor and McCracken won their championships when the tournament was far smaller than it is today and it took fewer games to win. Bo Ryan never had Jerry Lucas, John Havlicek, and Larry Siegfried on the same team either.
 



I wonder how far off this list Clem Haskins would have been if his tenure had ended after another ten years and not in disgrace. Definitely one of the sadder days in my Minnesota sports viewing of my lifetime.
 

I figure other contenders behind those 10 would be
  • Thad Matta, Ohio State, NCAA Runner-Up, 2 Final Fours, 3 Elite Eights, 1 NIT title, 5 Big Ten titles, 4 Big Ten Tourney titles
  • John Beilein, Michigan, 2 NCAA Runner-Ups, 2 Final Fours, 3 Elite Eights, 2 Big Ten titles, 2 Big Ten Tourney Titles
  • LJ Cooke, Minnesota, 3 Pre NCAA national titles, 5 Big Ten titles
  • Harold Foster, Wisconsin 1 national title, 3 Big Ten titles
One that’s probably hard to rank is Steve Fisher, doesn’t get full credit for the 1989 Michigan team even though he coached them through the tournament to the title, plus a two-time runner-up, but he never won the Big Ten and there was the accomplishments vacated.

The list didn’t include new Big Ten schools, either. If it did, it’d have:
  • Gary Williams, Maryland, 3 ACC titles, 1 ACC Tourney title, 1 national title, 2 Final Fours
  • John Wooden, 10 national titles, 12 Final Fours, 18 PAC/PCC titles
 

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