Recognizing a Good Coach for the Postseason

With postseason play now under way in the colleges, there are likely to be many teams that are guided by coaches with whom you are not completely familiar. The majority of games on TV during the regular season feature teams in the top 50 in the rankings. You are often very familiar with the coaches of those teams, or you can get a handle on them after seeing them several times on TV during the season.

All conferences except the Ivy League now have conference tournaments, and there inevitably are several not-so-well-known teams that pull some upsets and push on through to the semifinals or finals. If you don't know those teams or their coaches very well (and no coaches in major sports have a greater influence on their teams than college hoops coaches), there is a way to make a judgment before you make a wager on these exciting, do-or-die postseason games.

Here are the signs of a good coach:

1. His team has shown an ability to win some games straight up on the road. In college hoops, winning straight up on the road is often doubly or triply difficult because most visiting teams "travel" with very few fans, and college refs are often psychologically prone to favor the home team in the majority of close calls in the game. That usually takes team discipline, poise, and leadership to overcome.

2. When hosting visiting power teams, a good coach's team fights hard and well the entire game to either win straight up or cover when it's a home underdog. It takes good coaching to beat a team with superior talent.

3. The coach's middle-rung conference team regularly covers the spread at home when facing the lower-echelon teams in his league. In short, he wins and covers against the teams that he can.

4. His teams play consistent defense. Good coaches know that their top scorers can have an off-night or get into foul trouble in any game. So, good coaches demand good defense for every game.

5. His team improves as the season goes on. Few teams can change as quickly during the season, or to such a great degree, as college hoops teams. A key injury, academic ineligibility, "sophomoric" behavior (drinking, brawling, sassing), and transfers (homesickness, lack of playing time) are a common part of every hoop season. On the plus side, teams can add high-impact newcomers, or a returnee can improve dramatically from one season to the next, becoming a high-impact player. Teams improve under good coaching, and stagnate under weak coaches. For good coaches, players know their roles. Freshmen contributions improve. A team becomes tougher to beat straight up when it's an underdog.

6. Players for good coaches know the difference between a good shot and a bad shot. When facing power teams, bad shots are usually as bad as turnovers, giving the high-ranked team more chances to score with its better personnel. All players want to shoot, score, and be the hero. Good coaches know how to bridle those urges, getting their young players to think team first, and to take only high-percentage shots.

7. Good coaches have a good system - and that means a good system for the players they have on hand, not the same system regardless of their talent. The retired Billy Tubbs was infamous for coaching the same up-tempo offensive style, whether his players were good shooters or not, whether they defended well or not, and whether he had quality depth, or not. Ben Howland is respected in coaching circles for gathering a group of slowish (the major programs nabbed all the quick players), but accurate-shooting, heady players to Northern Arizona and making the NCAA tourney. Then, he adopted a completely different, slower tempo, power, and defensive game just a couple of years later at Pittsburgh in elevating that program back to the NCAA level.

8. They "know how to win." They have a press or a trapping defense that's ready to go if they trail late in a game. They know how to effectively "extend" games in the closing minutes by fouling an opponent's weakest free-throw shooters. They have saved a handful of timeouts to give their team more possessions. When ahead in close games, their players pass the ball to their best free-throw shooters; they let the go-to players take more shots.

When compared to these guidelines, you'd be surprised how many "name" coaches depend more on their talent than their coaching, while coaches such as Howland, Rick Majerus, Mike Montgomery, Kelvin Sampson, Tom Izzo, Jerry Wainwright (previously NC- Wilmington, currently Richmond), and several others took over programs and elevated them to a consistently high level even when their talent levels were below those of other teams in their leagues.

Chuck Sippl is the senior editor of The Gold Sheet, the first word in sports handicapping for 46 years. The amazingly compact Gold Sheet features analysis of every football and basketball game, exclusive insider reports, widely followed Power Ratings, and a Special Ticker of key injuries and team chemistry. If you have never seen The Gold Sheet and would like to peruse a complimentary sample copy, call The Gold Sheet at (800) 798-GOLD (4653) and mention that you read about it in Card Player. You can look up The Gold Sheet on the web at www.goldsheet.com.