Coaches and a 12 Year Championship Window

[Perrin75]

I was looking around to see which coaches had won multiple championships and I pulled up this Wikipedia page. In the second box it lists coaches who have won multiple championships. As I was looking at the data, I noticed something interesting. With the exception of three coaches, all of them won their titles for the same school within a 12 year window. The exceptions were Bill Self, who has managed to win two titles in 14 years, Branch McCracken who extended his window to 13 years, and Coach K who is just simply an outlier and managed to find success over nearly three decades.

Everyone else from the great John Wooden with the most titles down to the first coach to win multiple titles, Henry Iba, stayed within a 12 year box. So, I am wondering, does this demonstrate that Coaches have a shelf life. If titles are the goal, does the clock simply start ticking once they have won that first title? And if that is the case, do we basically have until 2024 to hope that Calipari can bring home some hardware or will it be time to move on?

 

[jedwar]

Interesting information. I don't think you can stick to a strict 12 year window to say stay or leave. But there are some troubling trends with Cal the last few years. I do think the next 2 years will say a lot with him and the UK program. If another year of a historic bad record or NCAAT loss or NIT then it becomes very iffy.

 

[Smashcat]

Forget about 12 years between championships for a second. If UK doesn't make it to a Final Four in 2023, an eight year absence will be pretty hard for Cal to explain.

 

[EliteBlue]

Sounds accurate when you think of average coaching career length.

It takes a decade or so to climb the ladder and get to a university capable of winning multiple titles.

It takes a few years to get to the mountain top and win that first one.

now it’s all about capturing that momentum (like anything in life) and capitalizing on being hot and having buzz. Once you lose that, (a decade of not knocking on the door or finishing) it’s increasingly difficult to recapture unless you have Nike revamp your image w USA basketball and funnel you recruits (K).