From the moment of opening tip in early November, the entire college basketball season has been building towards this moment. Sixty-eight teams heard their names called on Selection Sunday and the NCAA Tournament has finally arrived. All of that hard work leads to this, as these teams begin to fight for their right to head to the Final Four and potentially hoist the national championship trophy in three weeks.
Every moment matters not just during March Madness but leading up to this incredible event. This isn’t just about what these teams may or may not have done on the court but how they prepared for these moments. Teams don’t get here without incredible players playing their hearts out and those players don’t get to these campuses without coaches that know how to bring them aboard.
College basketball is full of talented head coaches that have dedicated themselves to their craft. Even with the recent retirements of several legendary coaches there’s still an incredible amount of coaching talent in this sport. We’ve seen some older legends really revitalize themselves this year while a few younger coaches are taking major steps forward with their programs.
All things considered, teams do not reach March Madness without the hard work that their coaches and coaching staffs put in for twelve months of the year. We’ll be taking time to rank all 68 head coaches in the NCAA Tournament field, diving into each of them and how they’ve gotten to this point. It’s an interesting balance of old and new names and we’re basing these rankings on the coaches and their histories, not specifically on their current teams or how we think they’ll fare in the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
Let’s not waste any more time and get right into the rankings, featuring every man who’s coached his way into the Big Dance this year.
68. Donny Lind (Mount St. Mary’s)
0 NCAA Tournaments
In his very first season after graduating from Loyola Maryland, Lind was a graduate manager for VCU when the Rams went to the Final Four. He was later Shaka Smart’s video coordinator and spent more than a decade on staff at a few other schools including Mount St. Mary’s. The Mountaineers brought him back to town as head coach this season and it’s been quite the head coaching debut. He led this program to their first MAAC Tournament championship.
67. Rob Krimmel (St. Francis)
0 NCAA Tournaments
Krimmel has been at St. Francis since 1996, first as a player, then an assistant, and since 2012 as the head coach of the Red Flash. The former point guard has seen a lot of history with this program, but even he hadn’t seen the NCAA Tournament until now. Krimmel has had ups and downs with a number of postseason bids for the other tournaments, but just won the NEC Tournament and has the Red Flash heading to the Big Dance for the first time since 1991.
66. Brian Barone (SIU Edwardsville)
0 NCAA Tournaments
Barone played at Texas A&M and Marquette before settling into a coaching career that finally sees him with his shining moment. After aiding coaches like Porter Moser, Tom Crean, and Brian Wardle, Barone was out of basketball until latching on at SIU Edwardsville. He ascended to the head coaching job in 2019 and has kept this program ascending as well. This year’s OVC Tournament title was a historic moment for the Cougars who’ll head to their first ever trip to the NCAA Tournament.
65. Duane Simpkins (American)
0 NCAA Tournaments
Formerly a Maryland star under Gary Williams in the 90’s, Simpkins’ coaching career is really taken a major step forward. He had been a high school coach before just over a decade on a few D1 staffs, notably spending a long stint at George Mason. He’s back in more familiar woods with American, a job he took in 2023, and already has led the Eagles to a Patriot League Tournament title in his second season while winning 64% of their conference games.