More Tidbits About Division I Head Hoops Coaches

The 327 DI coaches went to roughly 241 different colleges. The schools with the most alums as head coaches are among the hoops elite -- UConn, Carolina and Oklahoma State with five. Duke, a perennial heavyweight, has four alums who are DI head coaches, as do Butler (in hoops-rich Indiana) and Eastern Michigan. Thirteen schools have three alums who are head coaches, among them historical winners Boston College, Indiana, Kentucky, N.C. State, Princeton and Syracuse.

Among the names you wouldn't have predicted to spawn head coaches at the DI level are Arkansas A&M, Bethune-Cookman (Temple's John Chaney is an alum), Cal State-Northridge, Catholic, East Carolina, East Tennessee State, Eastern New Mexico, Keene St., Kings (Wisconsin's Bo Ryan), Merrimack (the brothers Herrion), Montana, Northern Iowa, Northern Michigan (Michigan State's Tom Izzo), Potsdam State, San Jose State, St. Lawrence (Iowa State's Wayne Morgan is an alum), Seattle Pacific and Wisconsin-Platteville, each of which has two alums who are Division I head coaches.

Of the DI head coaches, roughly 2/3 went to DI schools and 1/3 did not. 27 coaches went to the schools that represent the Top 15 "winningest" DI programs of all time -- Kentucky (3), North Carolina (5), Kansas (2), Duke (4), St. John's (0), Syracuse (3), Temple (0), Pennsylvania (0), Indiana (3), Notre Dame (1), Utah (0), UCLA (2), Oregon State (0), Princeton (3) and Illinois (1). If you read Blue Ribbon and other guides closely, you'll note that many of the coaches who went to name schools weren't necessarily "name" players. That shouldn't surprise most people, but it is interesting to see which schools have "spawned", as it were, the most head coaches. I haven't gone so far as to breakdown how many coaches are coaching at their alma maters, but I recall that it's probably in the dozens. If that's the case, then you can realize how hard it is to get a DI head coaching job.

Okay, here goes, the alma maters of all 327 Division I college hoops coaches:

Connecticut (5)
North Carolina (5)
Oklahoma State (5)

Butler (4)
Duke (4)
Eastern Michigan (4)

Alabama-Birmingham (3)
Boston College (3)
Bucknell (3)
Indiana (3)
Kentucky (3)
LaSalle (3)
Louisiana Tech (3)
N.C. State (3)
Oregon (3)
Pacific (3)
Princeton (3)
Syracuse (3)
Virginia (3)

Alabama (2)
Arkansas (2)
Arkansas A&M (2)
Bethune-Cookman (2)
Cal State Northridge (2)
Catholic (2)
Charlotte (2)
Cincinnati (2)
East Carolina (2)
East Tennessee St. (2)
Eastern New Mexico (2)
Fairfield (2)
Georgia (2)
Howard (2)
Idaho (2)
Kansas (2)
Keene St. (2)
Kings (2)
Louisville (2)
Maryland (2)
Massachusetts (2)
Merrimack (2)
Mississippi (2)
Mississippi State (2)
Montana (2)
New Mexico St. (2)
Northern Iowa (2)
Northern Michigan (2)
Pittsburgh (2)
Potsdam State (2)
Providence (2)
Purdue (2)
San Jose St. (2)
St. Bonaventure (2)
St. Lawrence (2)
Seattle Pacific (2)
TCU (2)
UCLA (2)
Virginia Tech (2)
Western Kentucky (2)
Wisconsin-Platteville (2)

One apiece:
Adelphi
Akron
Alabama A&M
Alabama State
Albany
Alderson-Broaddus
American International
Arizona
Asbury
Ashland
Army
Augsburg
Baptist Bible
Baylor
Belhaven
Belmont
Bemijdi State
Birmingham Southern
Bishop
Boise State
Bowling Green
Bradley
Brockport State
Buffalo State
California
Cameron
Campbellsville
Carnegie Mellon
Catawba
Centenary
Central Connecticut State
Central Michigan
Central Washington
Chadron State
Cheyney State
Clarion State
Colorado College
Colorado State
Creighton
Davidson
Defiance
Delaware
DePaul
DePauw
Dowling
Eastern Illinois
Eastern Kentucky
East Texas State
Eckerd
Edison State
Elizabethtown
Elon
Emory & Henry
Empire St.
Fairleigh Dickinson
Ferris State
Florida State
Fresno State
Furman
Gardner-Webb
Georgetown
George Washington
Gettysburg
Gonzaga
Grambling
Guilford
High Point
Hofstra
Holy Cross
Houston
Illinois
Illinois-Chicago
Illinois St.
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas State
Lamar
Lenoir Rhyne
Long Beach State
Louisiana Monroe
LSU
Luther
Maine
McMurry
Memphis
Merchant Marine
Miami (FL)
Miami (Ohio)
Michigan Tech
Middle Tennessee State
Minnesota-Duluth
Minot St.
Missouri
Missouri-St. Louis
Monmouth
Montana State
Mount St. Mary's
Navy
New Orleans
Nicholls State
North Central College
Northeastern
Northern Colorado
North Texas
Notre Dame
Nova Southeastern
Ohio
Ohio State
Oklahoma Baptist
Old Dominion
Oswego
Our Lady of Holy Cross
Pembroke State
Penn State
Pikeville
Queens
Randolph-Macon
Regis
Rhode Island
Rice
Richmond
Ripon
Roanoke
Rowan
Sacred Heart
Saginaw Valley State
Salem State
St. Joseph's
St. John Fisher
St. Mary of the Plains
St. Paul's
St. Peter's
San Francisco
Siena
Slippery Rock
South Alabama
South Carolina
Southeast Louisiana
Southern California
Southern Illinois
Southern Mississippi
Southern Utah
Southwest Texas State
Susquehanna
Tennessee
Tennessee-Martin
Texas-Arlington
Texas Southern
Texas St.
Toledo
Troy State
Tulsa
Union
UC-San Diego
UC-Santa Barbara
UC-Irvine
UC-Riverside
UNLV
UNC-Asheville
Ursinus
Valdosta State
Villanova
Washington & Lee
Weber State
Western State
Westfield State
Wheeling Jesuit
Widener
Wilkes
William Jewell
Winthrop
Wisconsin
Wisconsin-LaCrosse
Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Wisconsin-Stevens Point.

Okay, if you're a savant and do the math, I might have missed a school or two, but I think that the count and the breakdowns are 98%+ accurate. I've also done some tabulating regarding DI assistants, in terms of their year of graduation and where they went to school. As a preview, suffice it to say that there isn't a single assistant coach in the college ranks who graduated before 1960, while there are at least 5 DI assistants who graduated in 2005.

Coaching is a young man's game, except, as I pointed out in my previous post, when it comes to the Top 25. In that group, the coaches are significantly older, as it were, than the entire body of DI coaches. I'm sure if you were to break down that demographic further, you could also discern how much money DI schools are willing to spend on the best coaches and programs, and, in turn, which DI programs really have a chance to win a national title. While schools get a lot of juice regarding a DI hoops program and where a trip to the NCAA Tournament would appear to be the ultimate narcotic for an athletic department, I would surmise that if you accept the premise that older/more experienced coaches cost more, that perhaps only 20% of the DI programs have a legitimate shot to make it to a Final Four. That's just a guess, but it's worth exploring in future posts.