[FarmTeam]

Rick Pitino’s coaching tree has done alright: three titles between Billy Donovan and Tubby Smith.

Duke is coached by a coach K protege (former player and assistant), and seems to be doing alright (it helps to have the best player).

I would say that on the balance, former assistants and players of legends probably do a bit worse than expectations because expectations are probably weighted upwards due to expectations that the magic will rub off.

BC

Not to split hairs, but I said "long-time" assistants. Billy D and Tubby aren't good examples in any case: they were only with Pitino for a few years and didn't inherit blue-chip programs. Scheyer was so young that he's almost a case unto himself (he was, what, 34 when he got the job?) though I suppose it's fair to lump him in. But on balance I'd say that Coach K has way more failures in his tree than successes. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking Dawkins, Wojo, Snyder (as a college coach), Collins, Amaker.

We could argue examples and maybe someone out there has done a deep-dive on this, but my broader point was less about the "assistant" part and more about having a proven track record as a head coach. And not just a year or two at some small-time program where the name is enough to attract a slightly better caliber of recruit and then achieve a quick bump (looking at you Jerod Haase, Troy Taylor, Mark Madsen). Without the latter, the risk is infinitely higher imo.

No reason Stanford needed to take a risk. How many better jobs in NCAA WBB are there? A half dozen?

[FarmTeam]

Rick Pitino’s coaching tree has done alright: three titles between Billy Donovan and Tubby Smith.

Duke is coached by a coach K protege (former player and assistant), and seems to be doing alright (it helps to have the best player).

I would say that on the balance, former assistants and players of legends probably do a bit worse than expectations because expectations are probably weighted upwards due to expectations that the magic will rub off.

BC

Not to split hairs, but I said "long-time" assistants. Billy D and Tubby aren't good examples in any case: they were only with Pitino for a few years and didn't inherit blue-chip programs. Scheyer was so young that he's almost a case unto himself (he was, what, 34 when he got the job?) though I suppose it's fair to lump him in. But on balance I'd say that Coach K has way more failures in his tree than successes. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking Dawkins, Wojo, Snyder (as a college coach), Collins, Amaker.

We could argue examples and maybe someone out there has done a deep-dive on this, but my broader point was less about the "assistant" part and more about having a proven track record as a head coach. And not just a year or two at some small-time program where the name is enough to attract a slightly better caliber of recruit and then achieve a quick bump (looking at you Jerod Haase, Troy Taylor, Mark Madsen). Without the latter, the risk is infinitely higher imo.

No reason Stanford needed to take a risk. How many better jobs in NCAA WBB are there? A half dozen?