As everyone hunts for the next young coach, the next Dean Smith, Coach K, Jay Wright etc.... Age wins! here is an article from it looks like 2 years ago that examined the age of every head coach in d1 tourney the past 10 seasons " We examined the ages of every head coach in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament for the past 10 seasons and uncovered a consistent trend: The older the coach, the more likely the team is to have success in the tournament. In nearly every round of every tournament since the 2009-10 season, the average age of winning head coaches has increased with every round. In almost every tournament, the average age of the coaches who lose in the first round is lower than the average age to make the tournament that year." Age of Success in March Madness | Do Older Coaches Win More Games?
From the MedicareAdvantage website . . . LOL! Still a good article and something to think about. This year there are three "seasoned" coaches in the Final Four.
Seems like common sense...the older coaches tend to work their way up to more established teams like Duke, Kansas, UK, Zags, MSU..etc. whereas the young coaches are at mid majors looking to use them as stepping stones and might be good for an upset or two. Until you start seeing the big names start hire coaches in the 30's I expect this to continue not to mention they don't have much turnover. Even Cal has been at UK for more than a decade.
Makes sense, so I guess we should have hired a 50+ year old coach.. Not 30 somethings, but the last 2 NCs have been won by 50 yr olds, Drew and Bennett. Calipari won his NC in his early 50s also. The losing NC coaches the last 2 years were late 40s, late 50s, Beard and Few. Kevin Ollie at Uconn is the youngest coach I recall winning a NC other than Donovan, both in early 40s. Ollie was ultimately fired for cheating and still out of coaching I believe. Of course there are the old guys like Williams at NC and the guy at Duke.
36, 41 and 47 by my math. Certainly an exception. Probably helped that he became a HC at 24, which was rare at the time and even more so now
Was just trying to give a counter example. He then became stuck in his ways and never adjusted to the three point shot.
Head coach at Army with Coach K being a player of his. If I can believe Bill Koss in his book "Pond Birds" Bobby Knight agreed to leave Army to be the Florida head coach and then changed his mind.
Yeah sure but all their examples have been at those schools forever. I'm 35 and only one of them hasn't been coaching at the same school since before I was born. If the article is making a point that schools need to hire old coaches that simply doesn't make sense, as none of the older coaches they listed who have success like that are hireable and if they haven't had success after a 30 year career why hire them?
