4. WCC Basketball coach power rankings – Bill Grier (San Diego, 2007-2015)
In the quest to take down Gonzaga and the other WCC powers, what better way to do it than to pluck one of their assistants? When Grier was hired by San Diego in 2007, he was beginning his head coaching career after 15 years as an assistant with the Bulldogs. The Toreros weren’t really impressive as Grier took over the program, though the results were immediate.
His first team in 2008 won the WCC Tournament after finishing in 3rd place, then upset 4-seed Connecticut in the NCAA Tournament. This was the real highlight of Grier’s coaching career and he never came close to topping it. His teams buoyed between 5th and 7th place for the rest of his tenure, only managing to make a single CIT in the process. After those 22 wins in his debut, they never won more than 18 games in a season.
One crazy fact is that the WCC Tournament crown was also the last time a team other than Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s, or BYU was even in the title game. The league has belonged to the big dogs for over a decade, but Grier pushed his Toreros through and onto that brief glory. Perhaps he’s better suited as an assistant coach, he’s at Colorado these days, but we can’t ignore that fantastic first-round upset of a team that would make the Final Four the year after.