Recognizing a College Coaching Great

Sometimes, it's easy to take for granted the quality and volume of someone's accomplishments. They've done it so well, for so long, the bar they set becomes so high, that excellence becomes the expectation. Well, for at least a moment, let's take some looks at the amazing resume of a coach leading one of college basketball's most storied programs. That's right... it's time to check out how awesome Roy Williams is.

WINNING THE GAME  

It's as simple as it gets, and while total wins matter, you can win a lot of games by: 1) winning a lot of the games you play, 2) playing a lot of games, or 3) a little of both. I believe that to measure greatness, you lean towards option 1, and by that measure, Roy Williams' career to date truly stands out. By the way, for those of you rooting for Roy to break the all-time wins record, don't hold your breath. Even if Coach K retired tomorrow, and Roy kept up his historic pace of winning nearly 29 games a season, he'd likely break the record sometime during the 2019-2020 season, at the age of 69.

WINNING THE CONFERENCE

Aside from winning a national title, the most prestigious thing a coach can do is win the conference, right? Again, when looking at regular season conference titles, the consistency of Roy is just amazing. "Oh, but conference titles are won in tournaments, not the regular season." Until recently, no. For conferences like the Big Ten (1998) and Pac-10 (1987), these are fairly recent developments that college basketball did just fine without for decades (in fact, a UA assistant coach pretty much summed up the real reason conference tourneys exist at all). But, if you want to have a discussion about the best college coaches of all time without Bob Knight and John Wooden (neither played in conference tournaments for the majority of their careers), knock yourself out. You'll probably love my next post, "Great Boxing Movies Excluding Rocky and Raging Bull."

WINNING IT ALL

For some people, there is no other way to measure greatness, and arguing with them is like debating degrees of danger with Colonel Jessup. Well, here you go. Fans of Coach K, this is the clearest way to put him head and shoulders above the peers of his era. For everyone else, maybe you didn't realize how much this shot mattered to a legacy at the time, but it mattered a lot. And in the era of the one-and-done blue chip recruit, the six-game winning streak required to cut down the nets, the top two guys on this list are going to be hard to catch, both in total titles, and titles per season. Unless Roy wins one in the next 3 seasons, at which point, he takes the #2 spot on a percentage basis.

So, as we march through the season, make sure to enjoy some UNC games this year. Because how often do we get a chance to watch one of the all-time great coaches in the ACC?

(Note: stats are calculated before this season's games, since the season is not complete)

Preseason View of the 2012 Draft Class

This week marked the official beginning of the college basketball season. While the prospect of a 6 month season is odd at best, playing a game on an aircraft carrier made it well worth watching. With the influx of new freshmen talent, in addition to the higher-than-typical number of prospects that returned to school this fall, there's a lot of talent to be evaluated in this year's season. With that in mind, it's a good idea to take a look at where players stand as we start the season. Using, in my opinion, the most reliable mock draft sources (here and here), this is how the players look going into the season.


TIER 1: CONSENSUS LOTTERY PICKS

The first thing to note is the draft positions of 0. While it's difficult to say who's definitely going pro and who's not (especially after last year), McAdoo, Beal, and Ross are considered top 10 picks in the 2013 draft, so they make this tier. Patric Young is probably the only questionable inclusion, but at least that leaves something up for debate.

Terrence Jones will be an interesting case to follow this year, given his current draft position. Conventional wisdom says that coming back to school would give him a chance to improve his game and show it off to scouts, whose new evaluations would move him up the board. After being a consensus lottery pick last year, he's currently the last consensus lottery pick on the board this year. We'll see if his choice to come back as a sophomore looks more like Blake Griffin or Devin Ebanks by the end of this year.


TIER 2: 1ST ROUND CONSIDERATION

The only consistent thing about this group is that it's all in the eye of the beholder. People could literally argue all day about how a player would function on an NBA court (Henson, Yarou), whether the college fit of system and player overstates pro potential (Taylor, Marshall), or if passing the eyeball test is enough to make a player worth the pick (Leslie, Dedmon). But here's some facts: there are 21 people on this list, for 16 picks. There were 15 people on the lottery list, for 14 picks. That means that end of the 1st round in June 2012, at least 6 of these players will either be waiting for next year or hoping they make it on a non-guaranteed contract.