WHO DESERVES THE HALL?
The Post-Standard (Syracuse, New York)
Final Edition
February 5, 2007 Monday
Tonight’s game between Syracuse and Connecticut will feature two Hall
of Fame coaches in Jim Boeheim and Jim Calhoun. Both were inducted
into the Hall of Fame in 2005.
Staff writers Kim Baxter and Mike Waters discuss some other coaches
who are headed to Springfield and a few who need to do some work
before getting their tickets to the Hall of Fame punched.
Waters: It will be interesting to see how the Hall of Fame committee
views Eddie Sutton, who retired after last season with 798 wins.
He’s fifth on the all-time wins list behind Bob Knight, Dean Smith,
Adolph Rupp and Jim Phelan. He took Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma
State to the Final Four, but he never won it all. And there’s this:
His program at Kentucky came under an NCAA investigation and was put
on probation.
Which leads me to my Hall of Fame pick: Rick Pitino. Pitino picked up
the pieces of a shattered program at Kentucky and took it to multiple
Final Fours and the 1996 NCAA title. He also led Providence to the
1987 Final Four and Louisville to the 2005 Final Four. He’s two wins
shy of 500 and he’s a mortal lock for the Hall of Fame.
Baxter: I like Pitino as a Hall of Famer. First of all, his speech
will be priceless. Secondly, all those Bluegrassers will once again
be forced to think about how he got away and is now sticking it to
them at Louisville.
After Pitino, I’d have to say Roy Williams is a no-brainer as a coach
who will eventually be enshrined. The former Jayhawk and current
Tar Heel head man has won 512 games (15th on the current active list
and second-fastest ever to 500) and has a .8025 winning percentage
(second among active coaches). He’s won national championships at
Kansas and Carolina, becoming just the third coach to win titles at
two schools. He’s produced some great pros and his contribution to
the game is immeasurable. Plus, who wouldn’t want to see ol’ Roy get
choked up in his induction speech?
Waters: I think there’s an interesting dynamic when considering a
pair of Maryland coaches – Lefty Driesell and Gary Williams.
Driesell was often portrayed as a country rube (the Duke students
would hold up cutouts of Lefty’s bald pate with a gas gauge on empty),
but the man could coach. He won a lot of games (786 to be exact),
unfortunately, he never got to the Final Four.
His best Maryland teams came in the era of one team per conference
getting into the tournament. His 1974 team that lost to N.C. State
and David Thompson was a powerhouse.
Then there’s Williams. He has 576 career wins and, of course, the
2002 national title on his resume. Personally? I’d vote for Lefty.
After all, he did create Midnight Madness.
Baxter: One coach who possesses enough wins to garner Hall of Fame
consideration, but will probably never get that phone call, is Jerry
Tarkanian.
He won 729 games at Long Beach State, UNLV and Fresno State. He won
990 games in all divisions of college basketball. But besides his
towel-gnawing and run-and-gun UNLV teams, he’s probably best known
as the man with NCAA violations at each school he coached.
Too bad. For now, I guess the Armenian Hall of Fame and the UNLV Hall
of Fame will have to suffice.