B1G Hoops Preview: Let's Talk Coaches

BoilerUp89 and MaximumSam have been doing great work preview each of the B1G teams. To complement that, what's more appropriate for semi-motivated writers at a free site than a few...roundtables?

You know the drill: we'll pose a few questions, several of us will weigh in, and you tell us how wrong we are in the comments!

COACHING TIERS:

Is it wrong to have Izzo, Painter, and Altman as the "elder statesmen" based on their consistent success over time?

PerpetuallyAggrievedWildcat: No, I don't think there's much of an issue there. Izzo stands alone, I think, but each is on their 15th year or higher--the next closest is Collins, 2013-14--and each has a Final Four.

Of course, Altman has also won a CBI, so...y'know...

AlmaOtter: Nah, I buy it. It feels weird to include the western interlopers, but Altman has a Final Four and 4 Sweet Sixteens at Oregon. Plus 15 years at Creighton, which is now, technically speaking, B1G Country.

MaximumSam: This is only Dana Altman's second year so I don't think so.

BoilerUp89: I'd echo what MaximumSam says. It's hard for Altman to be an elder statesman in this league when he's only been around the Big Ten for a single season. If we are including Altman based on success, I'd also argue for the inclusion of Cronin. I don't like the guy, but he's got the Final Four and the long history of being a successful coach. Cincinnati was a bad job while they were in the American. The university deprioritized sports, put the athletic money they were spending on football, and UC had to deal with crosstown rival Xavier replacing them in the Big East. Cronin still consistently made the tournament while there.

Kind of...: Honestly, I'm not getting too bothered whether Cronin gets included or not. But I wanted a spot to extol Altman. The man has 780 career wins. With his seventh win this year, he'll move into the top 15 all-time at the D1 level. He's won 20 or more games every year this millennium except one. I know everybody had a loaded team that was going to do damage in 2020 but for Covid, but doesn't "Oregon is looking at a four-seed, is experienced, and is led by one of the best PGs in the country" (Payton Pritchard) sound like a recipe for a deep run? Anyway, props to Dana Altman, regardless of whatever other descriptors you prefer.

If I had a second tier--"accomplished"--that included Underwood, May, Musselman, Cronin, and Gard, is that too many? Not enough? Do Final Fours get May and/or Cronin higher? Am I giving somebody too much credit?

PAW: The only thing I'd throw in here--do Collins and, potentially, Pikiell deserve more based on the curve that, I think, they both are graded on? At least I'd argue Collins should go here. Wild scenes, given that I wanted to fire him five years ago.

I think Gard and Cronin hit this for me. Probably Underwood, too, as he's got some conference titles to his name. And sure, I'll give you Musselman, though he needs some results this year for me to feel good about it.

Basically I don't give one fig for Dusty May, is my point.

AO: Seconding the Constantly Irritated Feralcat above. Dusty May/Picture of Dorian May/Musty Day/Director Krennic might get there in a few years. He's got a total shock F4, a CUSA title, and a B1G tourney title. But I don't count him in the second tier yet.

While I hate it, Gard's there. Two B1G titles, a constant presence at losing in the first weekend, good enough for second tier. Basically the same logic for Underwood. I think Collins and Pikiell are knocking on the door.

I don't know how to grade Musselman, so I will insert my favorite game thread bit from last year: Which Team Did Musselman Not Coach?: Venezuela National Team, Nevada Wolfpack, Rapid City Thrillers, or the Los Angeles D-Fenders? Answer at the bottom of the article!

BoilerUp89: I think May is pretty clearly going to have the best career out of the coaches here but if you want to wait and see on him that's okay. I argued for Cronin to be on the same tier as Altman above so he's fine. This is the right spot for Underwood and probably Gard although Gard will always be falling short in the comparison against his predecessor Bo Ryan. Granted, Bo would be in the first tier.

I wouldn't have an issue with putting Collins here but wouldn't fight for him either. Pikiell is going to be fired. Sure, he's had some tough jobs but I don't think it's reasonable to include him in this tier.

Muss is the real question mark. The two Elite 8s at Arkansas were really nice accomplishments, but Muss is awful rigid in his coaching style and doesn't adapt to the personnel on his roster. Muss is the person that puts every block in the square hole. He also may be the only head coach in the B1G that gives Cronin a run for biggest asshole in the conference. All this is to say - I don't know that Muss will ever have the longevity anywhere. While Buzz moves on every six years for a pay raise, it feels like Muss moves on because he can't get along with anyone.

Kind of...: I threw Muscles in solely because of the Elite Eights. Not quite solely, I guess. He got Nevada to the Sweet 16 where they lost by a point to Loyola, who went on to rout KSU to make the Final Four. But, yeah, he's been a CBB head coach for 10 years. And he's 60. Not your typical career.

Assume I held the four new coaches out for the time being, and split the other six coaches into an "established" tier (Hoiberg, Collins, Pikiell) and a "probationary" tier (Rhoades, Sprinkle, Diebler) tier, does that play? Am I blurring lines?

PAW: I served in the Big Ten with Ed DeChellis and you, Mike Rhoades, are no Ed DeChellis.

The "Established" tier are miles above the "Probationary" tier. Collins and Pikiell have made or flirted with history at their schools–Collins for the obvious, Pikiell for making something called "Bob Wenzel" the answer to a trivia question. Maybe not Hoiberg until he wins an NCAA Tournament game, though.

BoilerUp89: I don't think we need to include Rhoades on probationary. If he was at any other school besides Penn State we'd be talking about his hot seat. Instead he's got another 3 years.

Collins is clearly the best here in the group. Pikiell and Hoiberg are established but haven't done enough to secure their long term positions in this conference. Verdict is out on Sprinkle & Diebler.

Kind of...: I want an alternative history where Hoiberg doesn't leave Iowa State. He had the start of something special there. Maybe he was just ahead of his time as a pre-portal magnet for transfers, but they played really fun hoops. Alas...

Okay, let's bring in the newbies--DeVries, McCollum, Medved, and Williams. It kind of doesn't make sense to lump them together. Williams is a pretty well-know quantity at this point. Is he "accomplished," or just (super-)established? Where would you put Medved? With Hoiberg, et al., or above? Any thoughts on DeVries or McCollum? Does anybody strike you as likely to flame out? Likely to become an elder statesman?

PAW: Williams is established. He hasn't made a Sweet Sixteen in over a decade, though. I'd call Medved, McCollum, and DeVries "Rising" and put them above Rhoades and Diebler, bare minimum, and probably Sprinkle.

AO: I think Diebler is on a hotter seat than the others in the probationary tier. It's only his second full season, but The Ohio State expects better than below .500 in conference. He got the gig with some preternaturally lucky results after the trials of Christ Holtmann and I think a bad year might be enough for folks to move on.

BoilerUp89: A great recruiting class should buy Diebler another year. I don't think that has anything to do with him, but nevertheless if he can hold the commitments together he probably comes back next season.

Medved has a tough road ahead. He could flame out by no fault of his own if the Gophers basketball program devours him. DeVries and McCollum are really interesting guys. They've shown they are capable but what's their ceiling? McCollum is the most proven. You don't win four D2 national championships by accident. Can DeVries build a team without his son?

Buzz is a high floor, low ceiling coach. I don't know what to do with that.

Kind of...: As a Badger fan, I was terrified Buzz Williams was going to be at Marquette long-term (two Sweet 16s and an Elite 8 from 2011-13!). And then he left for...Virginia Tech? Now he seems to be low-rent Larry Brown doing his vagabond thing. Maybe he'll put it all together at Maryland, but maybe not.

Medved has impressed everywhere he's been. If that continues, you'll know he's a pretty elite guy. DeVries won at Drake before his son, and West Virginia went .500 in the Big 12 last year despite Tucker not playing a minute of conference ball. He's not winning a natty at Indiana, but he's a pretty good coach. McCollum...there's a 10% chance he turns Iowa into something special. He's worth keeping an eye on.

LOOKING AHEAD (hypothetically):

Let's change it up a bit. Consider:

Izzo (70), Altman (67), Underwood (61), Musselman (60), Pikiell (57), Painter (55), Gard (54), Cronin (54), Williams (53), Hoiberg (53), Rhoades (53), Medved (52), Collins (51), DeVries (50), Sprinkle (49), May (48), McCollum (44), Diebler (39)

Say the B1G expanded to 20, adding, um, Kansas, and a brand new school: B1G U. Further assume the AD at B1G U called you up and assigned you the decision-making authority for the HC search with these precise instructions: "You have to hire a current B1G HC. Money is no object. We are hiring this coach for 10 years and the buyout is so prohibitive that we are locking in for 10 years, no matter what."

Who are you hiring? (If you said Painter or May, give me another name, too).

PAW: That depends. Does B1G U have a soul, morals, or care anything for Playing the Right Way? If no, then I'm poaching new Big Ten coach Bill Self. Dude's gonna be Pitino levels of Old and Corrupt.

Otherwise, if I can't have Matt Painter, I'd take--and I regret saying this given my comments above--Dusty May.

AO: This is a fun question! Damn, I don't think I realized how young Painter was. That feels like the right answer, but you're not getting all of the infrastructure (and the 7-footer cloning facility) from Purdue. Musty Day is an infuriatingly good pick. I want to argue for Underwood out of loyalty, but he's sneaky oldish and has a lot of miles on those vocal cords. Out of the youth* set, I'll take Darian DeVries.

BoilerUp89: If I had a choice it would be Painter. But even if money is no object, he's not leaving Purdue for another basketball job at this point so that doesn't matter. Since I won't be able to hire Painter, I'll say McCollum. Altman and Izzo are too old and Cronin would be too big of an ass to work with. That really only leaves May or McCollum as B1G coaches I would want to hire. I'd swing for the fences and go with the winner.

Kind of...: Thanks AO! I like this question too. I was looking at coaching records on Wikipedia and was like, "Wait, a lot of these guys are close to the same age!"

Anyway, I showed my cards a bit above. But I'm ride or die with McCollum. I watch a LOT of MVC hoops. I can't get over the last three Drake coaches all getting hired at B1G schools the same year. Medved was only there a year, but he went .500...which tied for the 5th best record Drake has posted over a 30-year span. Honestly, Drake was, BY FAR, the worst team in the Missouri Valley from the 90s onward. DeVries was there six years and definitely impressed. Back to back MVC titles (Drake's second and third ever), and three NCAA appearances (Drake's 5th, 6th, and 7th ever...and the first three were '69, '70 and '71), but McCollum did something special last year.

The four national titles at a lower-level made the Bo Ryan comparisons inevitable. But there's another highly decorated B1G coach who only spent one highly successful year in the MVC before moving on to the B1G job. I'm not saying McCollum will be as successful at Iowa as Painter has been at Purdue. But I am saying watch out. The guy is an X-and-O savant. Carver-Hawkeye Arena is a dump, but if the NIL is there, don't be surprised if a new arena goes up in the next 5-10 years because McCollum has build something special.

COACHING CLINIC

In what is mostly a good way, the long-standing cult of the coach seems to be receding. Coaches still matter. Often a lot. But college sports have traditionally treated coaches as far more important than they actually were (go ahead and disagree with this if you want...happy to have this discussion). Players wins games, and most great coaches have had great players.

But...this roundtable is about coaches, so, being concrete, being precise, make an argument for one of these coaches bringing something to the table well above replacement value. Don't say "culture" or "system." Don't say "good offensive mind" or "adaptability." I want evidence. An elite game plan. Changing on the fly to save/improve a season.

[Two examples to help make things clear:

1) 1998 Arizona: 30-4, #1 seed out West. Defending national champs. Had broken 70 points in every game, broken 80 thirty times. Rick Majerus, on a tw0-day turnaround, has Utah play a triangle-and-two. Behind Andre Miller's triple-double, Utah obliterates the Wildcats 76-51.

2) 1987 Final Four: UNLV is the overall #1 and led the nation in scoring, embracing the new-fangled 3-point shot with Freddie Banks and Gerald Paddio finishing #2 and #4, respectively, in 3-pt attempts. In the national semifinal, Bobby Knight says "hell, let's run with them," and 1-seed Indiana shoots 62% from the field, and earns a 28-19 FT attempt (and 21-10 edge in makes), offsetting UNLV's 13-2 advantage in made threes (Banks had 10 himself, still a Final Four record). The Hoosiers won, 97-93, in a game that is typically called "thrilling," but which Indiana controlled throughout the second half.]

BoilerUp89: I have to go with my coach since he's the one I know the best. He's not the best in-game adjuster and will adjust his system to the players on his roster so neither of those two things are strengths. What Painter does better than anyone else in the Big Ten at the moment (maybe the country), is have an eye of potential talent and how players can fill roles.

Jaden Ivey was outside of the top 100 when he committed. Zach Edey was basically unranked. Carsen Edwards and Braden Smith were 3 stars. Some of these recruitments were lucky (Smith and Edey were backup plans), but other high major coaches didn't see what Painter did. Guys like Ryan Cline, Dakota Mathias, and Sasha Stefanovic weren't elite players but they filled the three point sniper role perfectly.

Kind of...: I know this was a hyper-specific question, but, yeah, I was thinking of Paint adjusting to Carsen Edwards in 2019 and going on a run. Or Gard, in his first season, scrapping the offensive approach on the fly, going back to the Bo Ryan swing, and rescuing the season. Or him doing something similar in 2020 and Wisconsin winning their last 8 games to grab a share of the B1G title (a real Covid what if). I totally think McCollum will have a couple moments where his tactical mind shows itself.

I'm old, and this will sound like bragging, but I knew Sparty had something special when, in Tom Izzo's first NCAA tournament, he won face 5-seed (!) Princeton in the second round and seemed unfazed by Princeton's offense (HC? Bill Carmody! Princeton was 27-1 entering that game.) In some ways, Izzo's greatness as a coach has been taken for granted as he's kind of coasted, post-Covid. It's less tactical (though the out-of-bounds playbook is legendary) and more persuading his guys that the don't have to adjust. The 2019 Elite Eight win over Duke should go in a time capsule. But might as well focus on the natty. Beating Iowa State in the Elite Eight might have been the de facto title game. Then, in the Final Four, Spary won games, with ease, scoring 53 and 89. They could play any style. Yeah, a lot of that has to do with overall athleticism. But plenty has to be with Izzo having his guys prepared to push tempo when possible, but also ready to be patient. For as great as he is, he's some bad tournament luck away from being properly rated. Hats off.

AlmaOtter's Eric Musselman Trivia: He coached for all of those teams!