Horizon League Basketball: Top 10 head coaches of the century (2000-20)

1. Horizon League Basketball rankings – Brad Stevens (Butler, 2007-2012)

Among the mid-major leagues that we’ll look at over the coming weeks, there may not be a conference with a clearer top coach than Stevens. He began his coaching career as an assistant under Lickliter at Butler in 2001 and was promoted to the top job six years later when he was just 30 years old. Stevens didn’t have any other experience and he wasn’t a prominent basketball player himself. He just happened to be one of the most successful mid-major coaches we may ever see.

Butler’s first four seasons under Stevens play out like a fairytale. The Bulldogs won the Horizon League regular-season title in each of those four years, winning a Tournament game in 2008. However, it’s what happened next that’s important, the reason that Stevens is revered among coaches today. He led the 2010 Butler squad to the national title game as a 5-seed and repeated the feat in 2011 as an 8-seed, marching through and upending great teams during both phenomenal runs.

While they were already growing into a prominent power, Stevens was dominant at Butler, and rode the Bulldogs into the A-10 and eventually Big East in the following seasons. He departed the team for the Boston Celtics in 2013 and has made his mark in the NBA as well. We can spend hours in awe at Stevens’ statistics and accomplishments (117-25 in his first four seasons!), but it’s clear that he is the greatest Horizon League coach in recent memory. As previously mentioned, he might be the very best mid-major coach in the entire country.

At last, we’ve carefully examined the ten best Horizon League coaches since the turn of the century. While today’s Horizon League is a shell of its former self, there’s still plenty to keep your eye on in this fascinating mid-major conference.