There are thousands of different metrics you could use when filling out your bracket. Speaking from experience, no matter how much basketball you watch you will always lose your pool to someone who picked the teams based on jersey colors or how cool their mascot is. There are a number of advanced statistics websites designed to give you a leg up on the rest of your office pool come March Madness.
One of the most important factors to consider when filling out your NCAA Tournament bracket is coaching ability. In a tournament where so many games come down to the wire, a coaching advantage can be the difference between moving on and going home. Quantifying what makes a “good tournament coach” versus a bad one is tricky. Some people will point to overall tournament records, but that can often be misleading. The coach of a 15-seed who knocks off a 2-seed deserves more credit for that win that the coach of a 1 seed who beats a 16-seed. If you want to truly measure a coaches prowess in the tournament, you have to look at how the perform compared to how they were supposed to perform.
I decided to research which coaches consistently outperform their seed expectation and how many fail to live up to expectations. When I say “seed expectations” I am referring to how far a team should make it based on their seed number if the entire tournament goes chalk.
Seed expectation means:
- 1 seeds should make the Final Four
- 2 seeds should make the Elite Eight
- 3 and 4 seeds should make the Sweet Sixteen
- 5-8 seeds should make the second round
- 9-16 seeds should lose in the first round.
If a team exceeds these expectations, then they overachieved, if they lost before they were supposed to, they underachieved and if they lost exactly when they were supposed to then the properly achieved. I divided the prominent coaches in this years tournament into three groups, based on their tournament history at their current schools compared to their seed expectations. When you look at past results, it is clear that three coaches stand above the rest when it comes to NCAA Tournament Performance.
This list is obviously not perfect as it is hard to compare someone like Coach K who has been to 33 NCAA Tournaments at Duke to a coach like Tony Bennett who has only been to the Big Dance five times since taking the reigns at Virginia. Nevertheless, this list is definitely worth considering if you want to get a leg up on the the rest of your bracket pool. Without further ado, here is the list.
The Bad
Bill Self (Kansas)
Overachieved (3) – 2004, 2008*, 2012
Underachieved (9) – 2005, 2006, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
Properly achieved (1) – 2009
Tony Bennett (Virginia)
Overachieved – None
Underachieved (3) – 2014, 2015, 2016
Properly achieved (1) – 2012
The Good
Mike Krzyzewski (Duke)
Overachieved (13) – 1986, 1987, 1988, 1989, 1990, 1991*, 1992*, 1994, 1999, 2001*, 2004, 2010*, 2015*
Underachieved (16) – 1984, 1985, 1993, 1996, 1997, 1998, 2000, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2011, 2012, 2014
Properly achieved (3) – 2003, 2013, 2016
Roy Williams (North Carolina)
Overachieved (3) – 2005, 2009*, 2016
Underachieved (3) – 2006, 2007, 2012
Properly achieved (6) – 2004, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2015
Mark Few (Gonzaga)
Overachieved (5) – 2000, 2001, 2003, 2011, 2016
Underachieved (6) – 2002, 2004, 2005, 2008, 2013, 2015
Properly achieved (6) – 2006, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2014
Jay Wright (Villanova)
Overachieved (4) – 2005, 2008, 2009, 2016*
Underachieved (3) – 2006, 2010, 2014
Properly achieved (3) – 2007, 2011, 2013
John Calipari (Kentucky)
Overachieved (3) – 2011, 2012*, 2014
Underachieved (2) – 2010, 2016
Properly achieved (1) – 2015
Mike Brey (Notre Dame)
Overachieved (3) – 2003, 2015, 2016
Underachieved (4) – 2007, 2010, 2011, 2013
Properly achieved (4) – 2001, 2002, 2008, 2012
Bob Huggins (West Virginia)
Overachieved (3) – 2008, 2010, 2015
Underachieved (2) – 2009, 2016
Properly achieved (2) – 2011, 2012
John Beilein (Michigan)
Overachieved (2) – 2009, 2013
Underachieved (2) – 2012
Properly achieved (3) – 2011, 2014, 2016
Mick Cronin (Cincinnati)
Overachieved (1) – 2012
Underachieved (1) – 2014
Properly achieved (4) – 2011, 2013, 2015, 2016
Chris Mack (Xavier)
Overachieved (3) – 2010, 2012, 2015
Underachieved (3) – 2011, 2014, 2016
Properly achieved – None
Sean Miller (Arizona)
Overachieved (2) – 2011, 2013
Underachieved (2) – 2014, 2016
Properly achieved (2) – 2015
Matt Painter (Purdue)
Overachieved (3) – 2007, 2009, 2012
Underachieved (2) – 2011, 2016
Properly achieved (3) – 2008, 2010, 2015
Scott Drew (Baylor)
Overachieved (3) – 2010, 2012, 2014
Underachieved (2) – 2015, 2016
Properly achieved (1) – 2008
The Great
Tom Izzo (Michigan State)
Overachieved (9) – 2000*, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2014, 2015
Underachieved (4) – 2004, 2006, 2012, 2016
Properly achieved (6) – 1998, 1999, 2001, 2002, 2011, 2013
Rick Pitino (Louisville)
Overachieved (5) – 2005, 2008, 2012, 2013*, 2015
Underachieved (3) – 2004, 2009, 2011
Properly achieved (3) – 2007, 2010, 2014
Gregg Marshall (Wichita State)
Overachieved (5) – 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016
Underachieved (1) – 2012
Properly achieved – None
