Busting Brackets
Fansided

Sun Belt Basketball: Top 10 head coaches of the century (2000-20)

By Joey Loose

PHOENIX - MARCH 27: Head coach Darrin Horn of the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers yells at his team during the second half of the West Regional Sweet 16 game against the UCLA Bruins at the U.S. Airways Center on March 27, 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images)
PHOENIX - MARCH 27: Head coach Darrin Horn of the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers yells at his team during the second half of the West Regional Sweet 16 game against the UCLA Bruins at the U.S. Airways Center on March 27, 2008 in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photo by Stephen Dunn/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit
Prev
10 of 11
Next
ATLANTA, GA – MARCH 10: Head coach Darrin Horn (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images)
ATLANTA, GA – MARCH 10: Head coach Darrin Horn (Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images) /

2. Darrin Horn – Western Kentucky (2003-2008)

Horn returned to his alma mater as head coach in 2003, having spent four impressive seasons as an assistant at Marquette under Tom Crean. There, he had helped lead the Golden Eagles to the Final Four, and Horn was clearly ready to run a program on his own. As previously mentioned, Felton had already gotten Western Kentucky into impressive shape, leaving Horn to inherit a three-time Sun Belt champion.

Horn built on that success and took things a step further by the end of his tenure. He led the Hilltoppers to a pair of NIT bids early in his tenure and won at least 22 games in four of his five seasons. The highlight was his 2008 team that returned to the NCAA Tournament and marched to the Sweet Sixteen as a 12-seed. Evident even before that 29-win season, Horn had kept Western Kentucky as one of the very best programs in the Sun Belt.

He landed the South Carolina job immediately after that success, though like other Sun Belt coaches failed to make his mark in the SEC. He has since returned to the state, winning the Horizon League Tournament in his first season at Northern Kentucky. He’s directly responsible for all of Western Kentucky’s NCAA Tournament wins since the turn of the century.