New breed bursts onto center stage
By Andy Katz
ESPN.com
Bill Self bristles about being lumped into a neat and tidy category of young, hot coaches.
|  | | Billy Donovan is in the Sweet 16 for the second straight season. |
The way he sees it, Tulsa has been pretty good for two years,
reached the NCAA Tournament twice and should have received the exposure long
before this week's Sweet 16.
The problem is Self -- and his Tulsa Golden Hurricane -- play in the Western Athletic
Conference, a conference which lacks an ESPN or commercial-network
television package. Tulsa's only hope for national exposure came on two
random, not-ready-for-prime-time Fox Sports Net national telecasts this season.
"It's all about exposure and conference exposure," said Self, who
is finishing up his third and possibly last season at the school before he
is potentially lured away by either Nebraska or Georgia Tech.
"If we played on television, like the majority of programs in high
major conferences, Tulsa would get the exposure it deserved," Self said.
While Self is talking about the team, he's also indirectly talking
about himself. He's not secure being typecast as being part of a new breed
of coaches. He's actually old school, preaching tight man-to-man defense
with plenty of discipline in his program as well as his system.
"The key to any coach is the ability to keep it at this level,"
Self said. "There are plenty of builders but there need to be maintainers.
Young guys or old guys need to maintain, not just build."
Self, Seton Hall's Tommy Amaker, Gonzaga's Mark Few, UCLA's Steve
Lavin and Florida's Billy Donovan are being group together in this Sweet 16.
And they're not all that different than Miami's Leonard Hamilton, LSU's John Brady or Iowa State's Larry
Eustachy, also newcomers to the Sweet 16.
They're all young, all driven, all ready to step onto a stage occupied by some of the game's bigger names.
Their methods are new-age. They all remain skilled enough to be respected on the court during practice -- Few, Amaker, Self, Donovan and Lavin are all young enough to still get into a stance and guard a player. The advantage of actually going through drills and being more hands-on makes a difference with this younger set. Some of the veterans can still bark orders, but most don't grab the basketball and go one-on-one. Donovan wouldn't hesitate to get out and test Teddy Dupay's lateral quickness.
All worked their way up the ladder:
Self was a head coach at Oral Roberts, bringing that fledging program to the brink of an NIT bid. Prior to that stint, he was an assistant
at Oklahoma State.
Lavin served time under Purdue's Gene Keady before
climbing up the ladder at UCLA. He went from the end of the line to the front when fellow assistant Mark Gottfried
left for Murray State and Lorenzo Romar bolted for Pepperdine. Lavin got the
head job when Jim Harrick was fired. Lavin has gone as far as two Sweet 16s
and one Elite Eight in four NCAA appearances.
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If you look at the numbers, then you would think I'm in some total
mismatches. Denny Crum had something like 10,000 wins, and I had
24. Mike Jarvis had something like 6,000, and I had 25. Now I've got Gene
Keady with 15,000, and I've got 26.
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Gonzaga coach Mark Few
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Donovan apprenticed at Kentucky before taking over at Marshall. He
left there for Florida where he's now in his second Sweet 16.
Few was an associate head coach last season during Gonzaga's Elite Eight run and is in
the Sweet 16 in his first year.
Amaker is making his first trip to the Sweet 16 in his first NCAA
Tournament appearance after assisting at Duke.
Hamilton was a longtime assistant at Kentucky and head coach at Oklahoma State
before getting the Miami job and rebuilding the program.
Brady coached at Samford before taking LSU to the tournament this year.
Eustachy got Utah State to the tournament two years ago before taking over at Iowa State.
All, except maybe Lavin, paid their dues at smaller schools. But Lavin leads the
pack in having tournament success.
Now, they're taking on -- and often beating -- some of the sport's legends.
"If you look at the numbers, then you would think I'm in some total
mismatches," Few said. "Denny Crum had something like 10,000 wins, and I had
24. Mike Jarvis had something like 6,000, and I had 25. Now I've got Gene
Keady with 15,000, and I've got 26.
"Thank God it's my team against his team. There are legends out there, but we're still coaching teams. It still takes
players to win."
"So much is always made about the coaches," Self said. "But the
bottom line is that we're not playing the game. The players are, and they're
the ones who win the games."
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com. |
