NCAA Basketball: Ranking all 364 D-I head coaches for 2024-25 season

5. Tom Izzo (Michigan State) (Last year: 3)

Overall record: 707-295
Final Four in 1999, 2000, 2001, 2005, 2009, 2010, 2015, 2019
National championship in 2000

Izzo joined Jud Heathcote’s coaching staff at Michigan State back in 1983 and has never left, spending nearly his entire career in East Lansing. He became head coach in 1995 and led the Spartans to a national title just five seasons later. Izzo is responsible for sustained success with Michigan State, taking the program to eight Final Fours and 26 straight trips to the NCAA Tournament. He’s a living legend of the game and has won at least one Tournament game for three straight seasons, even with some mediocre finishes in Big Ten play since the pandemic.

4. John Calipari (Arkansas) (Last year: 2)

Overall record: 855-263
Final Four in 1996*, 2008*, 2011, 2012, 2014, 2015
National championship in 2012

Profound change came in the offseason as Calipari moved from Kentucky to Arkansas, starting a new chapter in his long coaching career. Calipari formerly led UMass and Memphis to vacated Final Fours and also helmed the New Jersey Nets in the late 90’s. At Kentucky, he won a national title in 2012, made three more Final Fours, and constantly recruited some of the nation’s best athletes to Lexington. He won just a single NCAA Tournament game in his last five years with the Wildcats and is looking to start anew with sustained success in Fayetteville.

3. Mark Few (Gonzaga) (Last year: 4)

Overall record: 716-143
Final Four in 2017, 2021

Few arrived in Spokane as a graduate assistant in 1989 and hasn’t left, becoming the sport’s greatest mid-major coach. He assumed the head coaching gig when Dan Monson departed in 1999 and has never missed the NCAA Tournament. Few is responsible for a slew of WCC titles and has won more than 83% of the games in his career. His Bulldogs aren’t just beating up weaker conference rivals, they’ve made a pair of trips to the national title game and have reached at least the Sweet Sixteen in each of the last nine NCAA Tournaments.

2. Dan Hurley (Connecticut) (Last year: 9)

Overall record: 292-163
Final Four in 2023, 2024
National championships in 2023, 2024

In his earliest days, Hurley played the point at Seton Hall, was an assistant at Rutgers, and was a successful high school coach in New Jersey. His collegiate head coaching career started soon after, with a decent rebuild at Wagner before some postseason success at Rhode Island. In 2018, Connecticut brought him aboard to repair a program in terrible shape and Hurley hasn’t blinked. Despite zero wins in the Big Dance in his first four seasons, he’s responded by leading the Huskies to each of the last two national championships, securing his place in the history of this sport.

1. Bill Self (Kansas) (Last year: 1)

Overall record: 810-248
Final Four in 2008, 2012, 2018*, 2022
National championships in 2008, 2022

Self played and coached with Oklahoma State early in his career before beginning a dynamic head coaching career at Oral Roberts in 1993. He was solid with the Golden Eagles and later took both Tulsa and Illinois to Elite Eight runs before Kansas hired him in 2003. The last 21 years have seen prosperity, with a pair of national championships and an insanely-long run of Big 12 titles, including 16 regular-season crowns. Self has been the epitome of consistency and success at a Blue Blood program and kept that momentum going even with last year’s 5th-place finish.