March Madness 2: Coaches with Deepest March Madness Runs

The second key factor in winning March Madness games is if a team's coach has one games and made runs in the past. 

Before picking that big upset, consider that 72% of Division I NCAA teams are coached by a team that has NEVER won a single NCAA tournament game. 

We clicked on the coaches for all 358 teams in www.kenpom.com and realized 257 of 358 never advanced past Round 1 (R1). To make it much easier for you, if you simply search this blog for a team you are considering picking, and nothing is found, then the teams coach has never won a tournament game while coaching that team or any previously teams. We set up a rating system for each coaches' deep runs, but before we explain that, we will start with the seven coaches who get a "10." These seven coaches are the only ones who have both won an NCAA title and taken a second team at least to the championship game. Some have won more than one, but once a coach has taken at least two teams to the title game and won it at least once, we give him a "10."

 

Team	Conf	Current coach	Deep Run Rating
Duke	ACC	Mike Krzyzewski	10
Iona	MAAC	Rick Pitino	10
Kansas	B12	Bill Self	10
Kentucky	SEC	John Calipari	10
Michigan St.	B10	Tom Izzo	10
Syracuse	ACC	Jim Boeheim	10
Villanova	BE	Jay Wright	10

The next 67 coaches have won at least two tournament games at some point in their coaching career. To rate them in order, we give them credit for their two deepest tournament runs, starting with their best run: 7 points if the coach won the National Title. 6 pionts if the coach took a team to the title game but lost. 5 points if the coach took the team to the Final 4. 4 points if the coach took the team to the Elite 8. 3 points if the coach took the team to the Sweet 16. 2 points if the coach won a game to go to the second round. 

To give more credit to coaches who had more than one run, we then looked at each coaches second deepest run and added the following number of points: 3 points for making a second title game (whether they won or lost). 2 points for making it to the Elite 8 or Final 4. 1 point for winning at least one game in a second tournament. When you add these points together the seven listed on the table above are the only ones who get a "10" for the championship and at least one extra trip to the title game, but the following coaches all won at least two tournament games (if that is all then they get a "3" whether it was two wins in one tournament or a single win in two different touranments) all the way up to 9 points for a title run and another run to at least the Elite 8, etc.

 

Team	Conf	Current coach	Deep Run Rating
Baylor	B12	Scott Drew	9
Gonzaga	WCC	Mark Few	9
High Point	BSth	Tubby Smith	9
Virginia	ACC	Tony Bennett	9
Auburn	SEC	Bruce Pearl	7
Detroit Mercy	Horz	Mike Davis	7
Houston	Amer	Kelvin Sampson	7
Miami FL	ACC	Jim Larrañaga	7
Mississippi St.	SEC	Ben Howland	7
South Carolina	SEC	Frank Martin	7
Tennessee	SEC	Rick Barnes	7
Georgia	SEC	Tom Crean (left)	6
Marquette	BE	Shaka Smart	6
Notre Dame	ACC	Mike Brey	6
Oklahoma	B12	Porter Moser	6
Oregon	P12	Dana Altman	6
UCLA	P12	Mick Cronin	6
West Virginia	B12	Bob Huggins	6
Arkansas	SEC	Eric Musselman	5
Cal St. Northridge	BW	Mark Gottfried	5
Eastern Michigan	MAC	Stan Heath	5
Florida	SEC	Michael White	5
Florida St.	ACC	Leonard Hamilton	5
Louisville	ACC	Chris Mack (left)	5
Pittsburgh	ACC	Jeff Capel III	5
Purdue	B10	Matt Painter	5
St. John's	BE	Mike Anderson	5
TCU	B12	Jamie Dixon	5
Texas	B12	Chris Beard	5
Texas A&M	SEC	Buzz Williams	5
USC	P12	Andy Enfield	5
Akron	MAC	John Groce	4
Alabama	SEC	Nate Oats	4
Cal St. Bakersfield	BW	Rod Barnes	4
Coastal Carolina	SB	Cliff Ellis	4
Creighton	BE	Greg McDermott	4
Davidson	A10	Bob McKillop	4
Evansville	MVC	Todd Lickliter	4
Harvard	Ivy	Tommy Amaker	4
Kent St.	MAC	Rob Senderoff	4
Long Beach St.	BW	Dan Monson	4
LSU	SEC	Will Wade	4
Michigan	B10	Juwan Howard	4
Nebraska	B10	Fred Hoiberg	4
Nevada	MWC	Steve Alford	4
Northern Iowa	MVC	Ben Jacobson	4
Ohio St.	B10	Chris Holtmann	4
Oregon St.	P12	Wayne Tinkle	4
Pepperdine	WCC	Lorenzo Romar	4
Saint Mary's	WCC	Randy Bennett	4
Tarleton St.	WAC	Billy Gillispie	4
UCF	Amer	Johnny Dawkins	4
Wisconsin	B10	Greg Gard	4
California	P12	Mark Fox	3
Clemson	ACC	Brad Brownell	3
Colorado	P12	Tad Boyle	3
Connecticut	BE	Dan Hurley	3
Georgia Tech	ACC	Josh Pastner	3
Illinois	B10	Brad Underwood	3
Iowa	B10	Fran McCaffery	3
Missouri	SEC	Cuonzo Martin (left)	3
Northern Kentucky	Horz	Darrin Horn	3
Oral Roberts	Sum	Paul Mills	3
Penn	Ivy	Steve Donahue	3
Richmond	A10	Chris Mooney	3
UC Davis	BW	Jim Les	3
Western Kentucky	CUSA	Rick Stansbury	3

Do note that we put (left) by coaches from this season who have won more than one tournament game but have left their program listed. That includes Tom Crean from Georgia, Chris Mack at Louisville and Cuonzo Martin from Missouri. It also includes coaches who had runs at big problem years ago and are finishing at smaller programs such as Mike Davis (Indiana run but now at Detroit Mercy), Mark Gottfried (Alabama runs but now at Cal St. Northridge) and Cliff Ellis (National Coach of the Year at Auburn in 1999 and now at Coastal Carolina). Finding out where coaches had gone made this a fun though time consuming effort.

The following are the 30 coaches who have won one tournament game, but only one. the first win is the toughest, so a coach on this list is probably more likely to pull an upset than a coach who has never won a tournament game.
 

Team	Conf	Current coach	Deep Run Rating
Butler	BE	LaVall Jordan	2
Dayton	A10	Anthony Grant	2
Hawaii	BW	Eran Ganot	2
Lehigh	Pat	Brett Reed	2
Liberty	ASun	Ritchie McKay	2
Marshall	CUSA	Dan D'Antoni	2
Mississippi	SEC	Kermit Davis	2
Murray St.	OVC	Matt McMahon	2
New Mexico	MWC	Richard Pitino (son)	2
North Texas	CUSA	Grant McCasland	2
Northwestern	B10	Chris Collins	2
Northwestern St.	Slnd	Mike McConathy	2
Ohio	MAC	Jeff Boals	2
Oklahoma St.	B12	Mike Boynton	2
Providence	BE	Ed Cooley	2
Rutgers	B10	Steve Pikiell	2
Saint Louis	A10	Travis Ford	2
Seton Hall	BE	Kevin Willard	2
South Florida	Amer	Brian Gregory	2
Stanford	P12	Jerod Haase	2
Tennessee Tech	OVC	John Pelphrey	2
Tulane	Amer	Ron Hunter	2
Tulsa	Amer	Frank Haith	2
UAB	CUSA	Andy Kennedy	2
UC Irvine	BW	Russell Turner	2
Utah St.	MWC	Ryan Odom	2
UTEP	CUSA	Joe Golding	2
Washington	P12	Mike Hopkins	2
Western Illinois	Sum	Rob Jeter	2
Yale	Ivy	James Jones	2

The 257 teams with coaches who have never won an NCAA tournament game are not listed, but if you didn't find a team you are considering in a search, then their coach has never won a tournament game.