Who are the most accomplished head coaches in Southland Basketball this century?
Historically speaking, you’re going to see the Southland Basketball Conference near the bottom of conference rankings on a regular basis. Many of these schools are in Louisiana or Texas and could certainly be considered low-major programs. Despite their lack of histories, with many of them relatively fresh to Division 1 athletics, there’s still been plenty of intriguing stories developing from the conference, including a very recent upset win over the #1 team in the country.
As a direct result of some of these success stories, the conference has seen its fair share of fantastic coaching. Recruiting elite talent to the Southland is an unlikely scenario and these coaches instead have gotten incredible performances out of some lesser-known prospects. A Southland coach isn’t going to have a Hall of Fame career without moving on to another school, but there were certainly some coaches who used these programs as a launching pad for a great career.
For now, we’ll be looking closely and examining the ten greatest head coaches of the Southland since 2000. Many different teams have shined at different points during these last few decades, meaning there are a great number of coaches to highlight. Obviously, wins and postseason success are most important for these programs but we’ll also take into account how they fared compared to their predecessors.
Let’s start getting into the ranking of these top coaches, running through some of the things they accomplished during their time in the Southland.