Ask the average college basketball fan which active coach has the most ex-assistants leading teams and you’ll probably get guesses ranging from Mike Krzyzewski to Rick Pitino to Jim Calhoun to Bill Self.
It will probably take a while before anyone comes up with Herb Sendek. But Arizona State’s head coach has the largest “coaching tree” in Division I. There are eight former Sendek assistants working as head coaches in Division I this season: Ohio State’s Thad Matta, Arizona’s Sean Miller, Jim Christian (TCU), Charlie Coles (Miami of Ohio), John Groce (Ohio), Larry Hunter (Western Carolina), Ron Hunter (IUPUI) and Mark Phelps (Drake).
Pitino and Cal’s Mike Montgomery have seven ex-assistants running teams. Pitino’s coaching tree is by far the most successful, boasting three national championships (one by Tubby Smith when he was at Kentucky, and two by Florida’s Billy Donovan). Pitino’s “tree” extends to the NBA as well, where Jim O’Brien coaches the Indiana Pacers. Jim Calhoun and Ben Braun have six assistants working as head coaches, while Tom Izzo, Stew Morrill and Jay Wright have five each.
See the complete rundown at basketballtimesonline.com.
To me, the names that don’t appear on this list are almost as interesting as the names that do. Given all their success, you’d think Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams and Jim Boeheim would have more extensive coaching trees. Bill Self’s assistants were popular hires for a little while, but right now Billy Gillispie, Barry Hinson and Sean Sutton are between head coaching jobs and Norm Roberts was close to joining them (and could be again, if St. John’s doesn’t play well in the Big East this year.)
A Tree Grows in Tempe originally appeared on About.com Basketball on Monday, December 14th, 2009 at 14:16:07.
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