NEC Basketball: Top 10 head coaches of the century (2000-20)
By Joey Loose
8. Tom Green – Fairleigh Dickinson (2000-2009)
If we were considering the entire history of the NEC, then Green would have certainly landed higher on this list. He arrived at Fairleigh Dickinson in 1983 and spent 26 seasons leading the Knights. Prior to that, he had played and coached at Syracuse, even before Jim Boeheim was head coach. He led the Knights to three NCAA Tournaments before the turn of the century but still had the program in solid shape moving forward.
The final nine seasons for Green were full of ups and downs. His 2005 team won the NEC Tournament and gave him his fourth trip to the NCAA Tournament. The following year, the Knights won their first NEC regular-season title in fifteen seasons but had to settle for the NIT. His final three seasons were some of his worst, though that mid-2000’s stretch certainly stands out.
Green closed his career with six seasons at CCNY, helping to rebuild a program that once had won an NCAA Tournament at the D1 level. In his nearly three decades at Fairleigh Dickinson, he clearly left behind an impressive legacy and is responsible for the program’s first four NCAA Tournament bids. There was good and bad in those final years, but he built one more run of success with those Knights, and that’s enough to justify his spot on this list.