SEC basketball coaches who belong on Mount Rushmore? Hard to pick
What promises to be a competitive SEC men’s basketball is underway. There will be few nights any fan base can pencil in a “W” before tipoff.
The 2021-22 SEC is a tough league, in part due to several shrewd coaching hires in recent years. The conference coaching roster is strong and deep. Which leads to this week’s topic.
My original idea was to name a Mount Rushmore of all-time SEC men’s basketball coaches. But Rushmore is too small.
Once past Adolph Rupp and Billy Donovan — the only SEC coaches to win consecutive NCAA championships — things got too sticky to limit it to four. Do Dale Brown’s 238 SEC wins and two Final Fours outweigh Ray Mears’ stellar regular-season resume that includes zero NCAA tournament wins?
What about those five Kentucky coaches who have won national titles?
Instead, I offer a broader survey. In other words, I wimp — not Wimp — out. Digest this information and pick your own Mount Rushmore.
Here is a school-by-school look at the winningest coaches.
Kentucky has five NCAA champion coaches, but Rupp stands above the pack, 876 wins, 397 of them in the SEC. Count 27 SEC titles in four NCAA titles in the 41 years in which he and UK challenged the league to care about something besides football.
If I had to pick a coach to take one team to one tournament title, it would be Rick Pitino. His 104-26 SEC record in eight seasons at UK is merely one chapter of an incredible career. As for the other three title winners: John Calipari began the season with 159 SEC wins and could pass Joe Hall’s 172 this year; Tubby Smith had 120 SEC wins at UK.
Donovan’s 19 years at Florida produced 200 SEC wins and six SEC titles to go with the 2006-2007 NCAA repeat.
Tennessee’s Mears ranks fifth in SEC wins with 182. After Mears’ first team went 6-8 in SEC play in 1962-63, he never had another losing conference season. His Vols finished first or second in 11 of his 15 seasons.
His great adversary at Vanderbilt, Roy Skinner, won 171 SEC games and two league titles.
LSU’s Brown ranks second only to Rupp at 238 SEC wins. His 25 seasons led to 13 NCAA appearances, a parade of stars — DeWayne “Astronaut” Scales, Shaquille O’Neal, Chris Jackson — bombastic rhetoric and Final Four appearances in 1981 and 1986.
C.M. Newton ranks fourth in SEC wins with 195. The first 131 came in 12 seasons at Alabama, then 64 at Vanderbilt. But Wimp Sanderson takes 'Bama honors with 132 SEC wins.
Auburn’s Joel Eaves won 124 SEC games from 1949-63. Bruce Pearl starts the season at 59 SEC wins at Auburn — to go with 65 at Tennessee.
Rick Stansbury is Mississippi State’s SEC wins leader with 122. But the GOAT in Starkville is Babe McCarthy. McCarthy logged only 88 SEC wins but claimed four SEC titles at Rupp’s expense from 1959-63.
Ole Miss has had a lot of turnover. I was surprised that Andy Kennedy’s 102 SEC wins take honors.
Hugh Durham tops Georgia in longevity and SEC wins with 141.
South Carolina’s greatest coach is Frank McGuire (1964-80). In the Gamecocks’ SEC era since 1992, current coach Frank Martin’s 70 SEC wins top Eddie Fogler’s 57.
Arkansas, the other 1992 addition, saw Nolan Richardson get 108 of his total 389 wins in SEC play.
Missouri and Texas A&M both have iconic coaches pre-SEC. Norm Stewart won 634 games at Mizzou, Shelby Metcalf 438 in Aggieland.
Carve your own Mount Rushmore. Good luck holding it to four.
Mike Strange is a former writer for the News Sentinel. He currently writes a weekly sports column for Shopper News.
This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: SEC basketball coaches records NCAA championships Final Fours Mike Strange
