March Madness Trivia, Question #7

[coolhandgopher]

Alright, took a bit of a hiatus on the questions, and I'm hoping to reach a nice round number of 10 before the title game tomorrow.

This is a two-parter:

If Gonzaga wins the title tomorrow night, Mark Few will tie two other coaches with the fewest letters in their name (seven, when you count up the first and last name) to win a national championship. Who are those other two coaches?

There are three national championship title winning coaches who make claim to the longest combined first and last name (total letters: 15). Can you name those coaches?

(Names are counted as how those coaches are/were commonly called, not by their given names; for example, I did not consider Michael Krzyzewski, instead he was counted as Mike Krzyzewski)

 

[builtbadgers]

Izzo and Hall.

 

[coolhandgopher]

Izzo and Hall.

Name 1 is correct, and I'm going to give you name #2, because I didn't specify (as in Joe B's case) that if middle initial/name was included in their common name, it would be counted. I was actually thinking of Hank Iba, although many called him Henry Iba.

Alright, Part 1 is in the books. Who are the names for part 2 of this two-part question?

 

[fan of Ray Williams]

Hank Iba

 

[GopherOhana]

Massimino and Richardson

had to cheat to get the third one

 

[coolhandgopher]

Ohana, good work! I thought the first two might come somewhat easy with the third being damn near impossible: Branch McCracken.

Tomorrow night’s matchup of coaches will be the the first national championship between two coaches whose names both total less than 10 letters. (unless you consider Bob Knight vs. Dean Smith in ‘81, which I don’t-he’s Bobby in my books)

And with the last word on this-the title game pitting the longest combined name was in 1994 when Richardson’s Arkansas Razorbacks defeated Coach K’s Dukies-29 letters combined.