Taking a closer look at the last 25 national championship coaches in NCAA basketball and attempting to rank them; which coaches stand out?
Each season, a new group of players wins the NCAA Tournament crown and all of its glory. Those special teams that win the NCAA Basketball Tournament have been led by some of the sport’s most talented coaches.
If you take a gander at some of the legendary coaches of college basketball, you’ll notice that most of them are revered for their success in the NCAA Tournament. Many of the legends of this game led their programs to the eternal glory of a national championship, while others have done it more than once. In a sport with over 300 teams, there’s no guarantee that a great coach will ever win a title, making these accomplishments all the more impressive.
There have already been 81 NCAA Tournaments and not all championship teams are created equal. Similarly, the championship coaches all come from different backgrounds and have far different accolades. There are Hall of Fame coaches who never won national titles, while a few coaches won college basketball’s ultimate prize and never amounted to much afterward.
We’re going to attempt to rank the last 25 NCAA Tournament championship coaches. This isn’t a ranking of programs or the individual title teams, we’re solely looking at the body of work that these coaches have shown.
Another thing to understand is that we’re looking at the last 25 winning coaches, not the winning coaches of the last 25 years. There have been several coaches who have won multiple national titles in recent memory. Our focus will be on the last 25 men to cut down those nets as national champions.
Some of these coaches are Hall of Famers, while some are still building on their careers. Without further ado, let’s jump right into the rankings.