USC’S Martin Makes 4 Ex-Big 12 Coaches In The SEC; Meet The Roster

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The sporting world knows that the SEC has raided the Big 12 for schools in the past few months — well, okay, those schools actually approached the SEC — but what folks might not realize is that Mike Slive’s roster of basketball coaches is quickly filling up with ex-Big 12′ers.

Next season, Missouri’s Frank Haith and Texas A&M’s Billy Kennedy enter the Southeastern Conference.  This past year, Arkansas’ Mike Anderson made the jump from Mizzou to Arkansas, opening up that slot in Columbia for Haith.  And today Frank Martin has confirmed that he’ll be leaving Kansas State for the SEC’s other Columbia in South Carolina.

With Martin hired, Andy Kennedy staying on at Ole Miss, and only Mississippi State still left searching for a new coach — tip to Scott Stricklin: scour the Big 12 — we thought it might be interesting to see how the league’s coaches stack up against one another.

Now, before we get into this, let’s all just admit a few things right off the bat:



1.  A 20-win season isn’t what it used to be, but it’s still a benchmark used in most basketball discussions.

2.  Coaches with longer track records might have more wins while younger coaches have better winning percentages.  We get that.  But we’re still going to list the league’s coaches according to total wins.

3.  Some coaches have worked in easier leagues while others have duked it out in tougher conferences.

4.  Some coaches have inherited good rosters and continued to win while others have moved from stop to stop building programs as they went.  That can impact win/loss numbers, too.



In other words, there’s no perfect way to stack these guys so — as mentioned above — we’re doing so by total career wins.  We’re also going to look at the number of outright conference titles or division championships won by each man, the number of NCAA and/or NIT bids each has earned, national titles won, and total 20-win seasons.

Interestingly, you’ll note that each current coach came to the league with at least one season’s worth of experience as a head coach.  Assistants — up-and-comers or not — need not apply.  When you’ve got SEC television money rolling in, why not buy a proven product?

Another tidbit — the SEC now has two Martins (Cuonzo and Frank) and it will soon have two Kennedys (Andy and Billy).

Also, Kentucky fans will surely note that we’re going by each man’s official record.  Meaning John Calipari has been docked the appropriate number of games from his 1995-96 run with UMass and his 2007-08 season with Memphis.  Blame the NCAA, not us.

All that said, here’s your 2012-13 SEC coaching roster with only MSU’s yet-to-be-named coach left out of the mix:

Calipari may sit atop the list thanks due to his total number of wins, but make no mistake — the best basketball coach in the Southeastern Conference is currently Donovan.  With a pair of back-to-back national championships and 14 20-win seasons in a row, an argument can be made that he is the SEC’s second-best basketball coach… ever.

Adolph Rupp won a ridiculous 399 SEC games while at Kentucky.  Dale Brown won 238 at LSU.  Currently Donovan sits at 160 and he’s only 46-years-old.

Calipari has Kentucky rolling, but for now this is still the Age of Donovan in SEC hoops.  Frank Martin, Frank Haith and Billy Kennedy… welcome to it.