Busting Brackets CBB Town Square meeting while sitting at a Roundtable
By Joe Nardone
If you could build a program over the next two decades and could only have one coach (factoring in age), who would it be?
Oddly, no one picked Purnell. Mandatory Credit: Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
JN: Josh Pastner. I know. I know. He only has a few wins against the top-25 and some people think he isn’t a great on-the-floor coach, but he can recruit. Plus he is super-duper young. Coaches are allowed to get better as time passes. I honestly believe his coaching will improve over time and will eventually catch up with his ability to lure recruits. Think of him like a fine wine.
BLW: I am going to go with Buzz Williams from Marquette. He’s been successful there for a while, so it’s easy to forget that he is still a pretty young man. He is only 41 years old. This is only his second head coaching stop. Marquette has been a force to be reckoned with over the last five years in possibly the best basketball conference in America. Williams obviously finds talent that others overlook on the recruiting trail and then coaches those guys into outstanding players.
JM: If we’re assuming that said coach would be staying with the program for the next two decades, how do you not pick John Calipari here? Don’t get me wrong, if we’re being real it’s probably Sean Miller because he’s now figured out how to clean up recruiting the West Coast and Middle America, but year-after-year Cal is landing a handful of top 20 players…regardless of one-and-done’s and Cal’s age who doesn’t want that? Even if I can get that for 5-10 years, not 20, I may take the risk. After all, it’s all about championships, no?