NCAA Basketball: Ranking all 68 head coaches in 2022 NCAA Tournament
By Joey Loose
52. Jeff Linder (Wyoming)
0 NCAA Tournaments
These last few years have been quite a rise for Linder, a previous assistant at San Francisco and Boise State. His head coaching career began with four very steady years at Northern Colorado, leading the Bears to a CIT championship and a pair of very good seasons in the Big Sky. He’s broken through to the Big Dance with Wyoming, an insanely impressive feat considering where this Cowboys program was when he arrived on campus in 2020.
51. Johnny Jones (Texas Southern)
4 NCAA Tournaments (1-4)
For the second season in a row, Jones is back in the NCAA Tournament, winning another SWAC Tournament title for Texas Southern. Jones previously took North Texas to two Tourney bids and led LSU to another, but has never gotten out of the first round of the Big Dance, getting his sole victory in the First Four. He didn’t win enough games at LSU, but he seems to be settled in quite well at one of the nation’s best low major programs.
50. Ray Harper (Jacksonville State)
3 NCAA Tournaments (1-3)
Harper has an unusually successful pedigree for an ASUN head coach. He led Kentucky Wesleyan to a pair of D2 national titles and led Oklahoma City to a pair of NAIA titles. Before Jacksonville State, he led Western Kentucky to a pair of NCAA Tournaments, including a win in the First Four, and has now led the Gamecocks to their second trip to the Big Dance, albeit in quite an unusual manner.
49. James Jones (Yale)
2 NCAA Tournaments (1-2)
Jones has been entrenched as Yale’s head coach since 1999 and has now led the Bulldogs to consecutive Ivy League Tournament titles. The highlight of his tenure was the 2016 upset over 5-seed Baylor. Yale has been a contending team for most of Jones’s time with the Bulldogs, winning four of the last seven regular-season titles and getting back to the Big Dance again this year.