NCAA Basketball: Ranking the last 25 national title winning head coaches
By Joey Loose
It’s been seven years since Jim Calhoun retired at UConn, but he’s back in coaching at Saint Joseph in Connecticut, even at age-77. The resilient Hall of Famer built an incredible program for the Huskies and has proven his prowess throughout his coaching career. He elevated a dwindling Connecticut program and made them into a true title threat.
Calhoun’s coaching career began at the high school level in the late 1960s before Northeastern, then a Division II school in Boston, brought him aboard in 1972. He helped elevate the program to Division I and led those Huskies to five NCAA Tournament appearances.
For 14 years, he completely changed the trajectory of the program, something he would soon do at Connecticut as well.
He joined the other Huskies in 1986 and worked quickly to escape the Big East basement. Overshadowed by teams like Georgetown, Villanova and St. John’s, he slowly built the Huskies into a national power, winning the NIT by 1988 and making an Elite Eight by 1990.
He brought incredible talent like Richard Hamilton, Emeka Okafor and Kemba Walker to the Huskies. All three of them played major roles in national championship teams. A previously sub-par Connecticut program had won three national titles by the time Calhoun retired in 2012.
Calhoun’s recruits won another title in 2014 under coach Kevin Ollie, while his legacy for the Huskies and college basketball remains strong. Calhoun went 50-19 in the NCAA Tournament and has already produced a winning record in his first season at unheralded Saint Joseph.
Even while dealing with sanctions and health problems in his final seasons, Calhoun built an undeniable legacy of championship basketball. He turned around two New England programs and is likely on his way to doing the same at Saint Joseph.