The coaches who get too much credit... and blame

You might wonder why the title of this piece wasn’t simply “Underrated and Overrated Coaches.”

There’s a reason for that.

The overrrated part remains in place, but the underrated half of the equation could not be kept intact.

In this conversation, Ryan Palencer and I will deal with overrated coaches, but the other half of our talk concerns a different subgroup of these bench bosses. These aren’t underrated coaches so much as coaches who get a bad rap.

It’s one thing to not receive enough praise — think of Dana Altman at Oregon. Yes, he doesn’t receive enough praise partly because of the ugly incidents which have accompanied his tenure in Eugene, but it can also be said that if Altman coached in big markets and did the kinds of jobs he’s done at Creighton and now Oregon, he’d get a lot more positive publicity. The man can coach.

The coaches who get a bad rap are the pinatas of #CollegeBasketballTwitter… and don’t deserve it.

“Oh, that’s a classic ______ timeout. Typical.”

“Oh, there we go again — _____ versus a zone defense, and the zone defense always wins.” (That one’s a little transparent, yet not limited to only one coach.)

When coaches receive that kind of treatment yet don’t deserve it, that’s a bad rap. They might not deserve more praise, but they certainly deserve too much criticism.

That’s our preamble. We now give you the most overrated coaches and the ones who get a bad rap. The former receive too much praise, while the latter receive too much criticism.

Here we go:

PART I: OVERRATED COACHES

RYAN PALENCER

The most overrated coach: John Beilein.

Sure, Beilein has produced a 30-win and a 28-win season at Michigan. However, he has also coached a great deal of talent to have reached only one Final Four. Michigan has a feeling of excitement around the program year after year. With another talented team coming back this season, Beilein will have to make some noise in a strong Big Ten conference. He received a pass last season, due to injuries. However, 2016 is a key season in terms of shaping how we look at Beilein.

MATT ZEMEK

Jim Boeheim — This could be viewed as kicking a man when he’s down, but it’s actually very simple.

When this season ends, Boeheim will have been at Syracuse for four full decades — 40 years. It’s true that a guy like Ray Meyer at DePaul made only two Final Fours in a similar length of time, and Boeheim has four. However, it was much harder to make the NCAAs in Meyer’s time, and only in 1979 did the tournament begin to be seeded. (Meyer and DePaul made the Final Four that yeare, by the way.) Before that, teams were at the mercy of the draw and could not play out of region. UCLA got the best of that deal, staying in the West. Midwestern teams such as DePaul? Not so much. Boeheim has enjoyed advantages Meyer didn’t have, and yet he’s averaged one Final Four every 10 years.

That’s leaving money on the table (so to speak — NCAA violation police might be listening).

Here’s the kicker with Boeheim, though: He has never made the Final Four as a No. 1 seed. That puts him behind several accomplished contemporaries, including those who have recently retired.

Yes, Boeheim is a Hall of Fame coach. Yes, he has built a consistent winner at Syracuse over a long period of time. Yes, his teaching of the zone defense represents a meaningful contribution to the sport.

Yet, you can be all those things and still be overrated within your field of endeavor.

PART II: COACHES WHO GET A BAD RAP

PALENCER

The coach who gets a bad rap: Josh Pastner.

Pastner is clearly one of the coaches on the largest hot seat in 2016. While last season was a disaster for Memphis, Pastner has actually done a fine job with the program that was built and deserted by John Calipari. Last season’s 14-loss campaign was the only season in Pastner’s six at Memphis that he lost more than 10 games. Pastner has continued to bring talent into the program; the most disappointing aspect of his time there is that he is just 2-4 in the NCAA Tournament.

ZEMEK

Jamie Dixon has often been the coach who gets a bad rap; sustaining Pittsburgh as a basketball school should not be taken for granted. That said, Dixon has lost a little bit of the mustard on the fastball in recent seasons, so he doesn’t get the award this time.

It’s Scott Drew of Baylor.

I’m going to admit that I’ve been part of the problem here. Yes, there are one or two games a season when Baylor is utterly flummoxed. Yet, human beings are allowed to be flummoxed on a few workdays… at least if we’re still imperfect, which — last time I checked — I am.

The big-picture reality in Waco is that Drew now gets Baylor to the NCAAs every year, not just some. He makes better in-game adjustments. He’s become quite consistent at getting his teams to bounce back from losses and play with tunnel vision in daunting road environments such as Phog Allen Fieldhouse and Hilton Coliseum. His teams don’t flinch as much, and through it all, Baylor is simply a very solid program, much more so than in 2013.

Drew used to be lumped together with Travis Ford of Oklahoma State. Now, he’s clearly separated himself from Ford, and if I can’t see that, I’m the one who’s failing to adjust… unlike Drew himself.

Hoops Preview: coaches who receive too much praise… and heat

About Matt Zemek