College Basketball: Five Best Coaches in the Game Today

Everyone knows coaching is one of the most influential professions in today's sports marketplace. However, I think the increase in influence and the role of the coach change drastically between college and professional sports.

College basketball coaches are responsible not only for winning games, but also for nurturing their players into successful adults and possible NBA basketball players. Combine that with managing the fragile psyche of college kids and their penchant for teenage behavior, and you can see why their shelf life is so short.

I want to pay homage to those men in today's game who have been able to balance all of the aspects of coaching, and remain consistent winners. There will be a few criteria however.

1. When I say college coaches "today", I really mean here and now. I know Coach K has had an incredible career, and is deservedly one of the best coaches in all of college basketball. But that is not news to anyone, so I will only be analyzing coaches track records over the past five years.

2. The basis of my rankings will be a combination of winning, recruiting, and developing the players. For example, John Beilein does not always recruit top talent, yet his teams, with the exception of this past Michigan team, have always overachieved.

Here goes:

5. John Calipari-Memphis

Coach "Cal" has been a household name in college basketball for a long time now, but it appears as though his coaching prowess has just begun to peak.

Since the 2003-2004 season, Coach Calipari has a record of 148-34 (.813) and has followed an ugly NIT season in 2004-2005, with back-to-back trips to the Elite Eight, and of course, this past year's run to the national championship game.

On March 8th, following a big victory over UAB Calipari became the second coach in all of college basketball (joining Adolph Rupp) to record 30 wins in three consecutive seasons.

The nay-sayers of Calipari argue that he plays in a conference with far fewer good teams. That his record in these recent years with Memphis has been inflated by the quality of the opponents he has faced, or lack thereof.

There is certainly merit to this argument, but in recent years, Memphis and Calipari have shown a commitment to facing a grueling non-conference schedule, and still win those games easily.

Not only that, but no one should blame Calipari for being able to recruit top-tier talent to a less prominent conference with less TV exposure. Instead, he should be lauded for his ability to convince players like Tyreke Evans to spurn hometown Villanova for far away Memphis.

But what really seperates Calipari from the coaches who were left off this list is his testicular fortitude, and his ability to constantly motivate and push his team to greater success.

When I say testicular fortitude I mean that Calipari is one of the only coaches who is not afraid to shake things up, even after the past has resulted in great success.

Calipari's implementation of the dribble-drive motion offense this year was gutsy. His team was returning almost everyone from the previous season, and it was adding the best freshman in the country. The Tigers were in everybody's preseason Final Four.

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