College Hoops' Most Overrated and Underrated: Who Tops the List?

This article is going to look at a couple coaches and players that sit atop the most overrated and underrated list. 

Most Overrated Coach: Coach K, Mike Krzyzewski

Coach K is a good coach, hell, he may even be a great coach, but he is absolutely overrated.  I doubt another coach in the history of sports has done less with so much talent.

Billy Donovan had similar talent to what Duke brings in every year and he won titles both years.  This in and of itself doesn't mean Coach K is overrated, but it does speak to the shocking lack of titles that Coach K has sitting on his mantle.

Coach K also has the added benefit of keeping many of his McDonald All-Americans for three or four years.  With that additional benefit it becomes mystifying how he hasn't accomplished more.

At this point, I would call Coach K the greatest recruiter of the modern era in college basketball, but certainly not the greatest coach.

Most Overrated Player: Tyler Hansbrough

Rick Reilly recently wrote what I would generously call a non-sports fan's take on the hatred that seems to consume many people regarding Tyler Hansbrough.

Whether Reilly admits it or not, the criticism is warranted because in the end Hansbrough on any team other than UNC wouldn't get the generous treatment he has received now for four years at UNC.

Hansbrough's patented move seems to be hurling himself wildly into his defender's body and putting up a shot he miraculously makes quite often. However, had it been called properly early on as an offensive foul it may have short-circuited his game.

Instead he's been encouraged to continue to break the vertical plane, and instead of "no-calls" Hansbrough typically has a foul called on the defender.

Would he be a good player regardless?  Yes.  Would he be the same player, absolutely not.

Now Reilly also says part of the hatred is the fact that Hansbrough out-hustles every other person on the court, which just isn't true.  There are a plethora of players in the country that hustle 100 percent of the time. However, none of them can combine that hustle with an absolute inability to not act like a spaz while doing so.

So, if you combine being spastic with hustle, Tyler wins hands down. If you judge strictly by hustle, well, then you have a debate.

Most Underrated Coach: John Beilein

Beilein may be the one coach who could go back in history and take down the Gene Hackman-coached, Jimmy Chitwood-led Hickory High School basketball squad made so famous in Hoosiers.

The backdoor cuts and the style of play he employs are extremely impressive, and right now based on pure coaching ability few coaches if any have shown an ability to get more out of their players.

At this point he seems poised to return Michigan to its glory years, but we'll see.  Michigan has started fast before, and finished poorly, so the case remains open. 

Either way, the Beilein experiment will be an interesting one to see if his coaching style translates to an elite program that can recruit "superstars" who may not buy into the system the way players did a West Virginia.  So far, so good, though...

Most Underrated Player: Tyrese Rice

In spite of a Boston College loss to Harvard last night, I'm still leaving Tyrese Rice on my list as the most underrated player in college basketball. He doesn't get much love nationally, but if Rice had a better supporting cast he would be in the discussion whenever the topic arose regarding the best players in the nation.