Despite my complaints about violations and scandals, it is pretty obvious how important coaching is to the college basketball game, and this Final 4 has an amazing list of coaches.   Here are the career wins (along with their ranking in the coaching elite) – thanks to Sports Reference.

• Jim Boeheim – Syracuse (989 wins – 2nd all-time, 2nd active)
• Roy Williams – North Carolina (782 wins – 9th all-time, 3rd active)
• Lon Kruger – Oklahoma (590 wins – 38th all-time, 10th active)
• Jay Wright – Villanova (474 wins – 74th all-time, 21st active)

It gets even more impressive if you keep going.   You have to have won 427 games to be one of the top 100 coaches of all-time (at least in career wins).  Only 30 of the 351 NCAA Division-I teams can boast having that talented of a coach.    11 of those 30 were coaching teams that made the Sweet 16.   And the other 5 aren’t slouches – only Billy Kennedy at 310-249 has a winning percentage under 60% (although to be fair, Greg Garb from Wisconsin has only coached this season).  Considering that Kennedy, Tom Crean from Indiana, Mark Turgeon from Maryland and Tony Bennett from Virginia have a lot of coaching probably left, I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them eventually finish their careers in the top 100.

But just think about this, the Final 4 coaches this year combined have a record of 2,835 wins and 1,156 losses – for a winning percentage of just over 71%.  There were only 61 coaches (63 if we include Boeheim and Williams) who can claim a higher winning percentage.   And to put into perspective how hard that is, here are a few pretty famous coaches who didn’t win 71% of their games.

• Bob Knight – 70.6% (899 wins – 3rd all-time)
• Jim Calhoun – 69.7% (877 wins – 5th all-time)
• Lefty Driesell – 66.6% (786 wins – 8th all-time)
• Lou Henson – 64.9% (776 wins – 11th all-time)
• Hank Iba – 69.3% (752 wins – 14th all-time)
• Ray Meyer – 67.2% (724 wins – 16th all-time)
• Don Haskins – 67.1% (719 wins – 17th all-time)

Anyways, that is a long-winded way of saying that these 4 coaches are pretty amazing.

Just 15 minutes to tip-off of Villanova vs Oklahoma!!!!!     Get your favorite snack and drink ready – the Final Four is about to begin!!!!!!!!