Who are the most accomplished head coaches in the Patriot League Basketball so far this century?
After taking a closer look at the Ivy League, it’s easy to see the similarities in the Patriot League. The conference is filled with historic and prestigious academic institutions as well as two of the nation’s most profound military academies. Like in the Ivy, this doesn’t always result in athletics success, but that certainly doesn’t mean Patriot League Basketball is a boring or disinteresting conference for basketball.
The ten current teams of the Patriot League have long histories, with some very unexpected success for some of these schools. We are long past the days where Holy Cross won the national championship, but there is still some fantastic coaching in this conference. It’s already hard enough to bring basketball talent to some of these great academic schools, but recruiting great basketball players to Army or Navy is an even more difficult task.
We will be taking a look at the ten greatest head coaches in the Patriot League since 2000, with the focus of course solely on these coaches’ success in this conference alone. We proceed by looking at a number of factors such as the school’s record and postseason success, plus how the team has developed under a coach’s tutelage. The balance these ten coaches brought to their athletics programs has been impressive, but not as much as their success, both in the regular and postseason. Winning at a mid-major is hard enough; try coaching in the Patriot League.
Without further ado, let’s begin ranking the coaches of the Patriot League, breaking down some of their accomplishments for these programs.