Popular narratives are starting to build in favor of Coach K being the greatest college basketball coach of all time, overlooking the Wizard of Westwood himself.
On top of that, "greatest" is a word that carries a lot of weight in the sports world, but again not the most concrete definition out there.
The two terms have swung around frequently in the college basketball landscape, mostly related to Duke men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski, now that his retirement has finally arrived. Coach Kay had already let the world know it would be his last storm, and the final push was made by North Carolina in the Final Four on Saturday night to end the No. 6 wound.
But don't let the nostalgic Twitter threads or goodbye posts lead you astray — John Wooden is still the best man to do so, and the greatest men's college basketball coach of all time.
It's not exactly hot take, or at least it shouldn't be. Ben Bolch of the Los Angeles Times addressed the Wooden versus Coach argument in June of 2021, when Krzyzewski announced he would retire at the end of the next season. UCLA athletic director Martin Germond has responded to a social media post honoring Coach Kay with a treasure trove of trophies with wooden pictures and graphics rallying Bruins fans online around the Wizard of Westwood .
For his career, Wooden had a winning percentage of .804 and Krzyzewski was .766.
Krzyzewski went on to go 50–50 against Duke's staunch North Carolina, while UCLA was so dominant under Wooden that they didn't even have a true opponent. The Bruins went 61–20 against crosstown foes USC, 56–17 against Cal, 61–14 against Stanford, 11–4 against Notre Dame, and 7–0 against Arizona.
UCLA had a historic 88-game winning streak over three years, and at one point won 38 consecutive NCAA Tournament games. Duke never had a perfect season under Krzyzewski, and after their back-to-back titles in 1991 and 1992, their following championships were usually preceded by an eight-year drought.
Wood has never had a losing season. Krzyzewski had four. Heck, Wooden only had one season with a win percentage below .600, while Krzyzewski had eight.
Yes, Krzyzewski has the most wins to date, but he coached for 18 years longer than Wooden. Teams played more games per season in Krzywski's era than Wooden, making gross wins an inaccurate metric that could be relied upon for direct comparison.
If Krzyzewski had left it after 29 seasons like Wooden, he would have ended up with 694 wins instead of today's 1,202, undoubtedly still more than Wooden. But due to scheduling differences, looking at the overall record in that period is going to be a more significant indicator of their success – Wooden went 620-147, while Krzyzewski went 694-240 in their respective 29-year opening span. .
Credit Krzyzewski for his longevity, but it's not like Wooden ran out of steam any time soon. He led the Bruins to the 1975 NCAA title, then retired on the spot. Had Wooden returned, he would have been the best coach in the country, coaching the best team in the world, seeing as he ended his career winning it all in 10 of his last 12 campaigns.
And then if all of this is adjusted for career length, Krzyzewski would have ended up with three championships if he had retired at 29, like Wooden. Looking at it another way, imagine how many more championships Wooden could have won if he had stayed at UCLA for another 18 seasons.
Will Wooden have the foresight to recruit Michael Jordan, who once said UCLA was his dream school, until he pursued it? Would the Marquess Johnson-led Bruins win in 1976 or 1977, or perhaps the core built around Reggie Miller in the mid-1980s? Even the Ed O'Bannon-Tyce Edney squad would theoretically have been Wooden's final squad, and they won it all in 1995 without him.
It's all ridiculously hypothetical, but the point is, Wooden would have had to win negative five championships in those two bonus decades to sink to Krzyzewski's level, and that's his track record with all the talent that came through Westwood. more likely to strengthen. ,
And speaking of all that talent, a quick look at UCLA's retired numbers or the on-campus Hall of Fame should answer that question even more clearly.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then Lew Alcindor) and Bill Walton are almost unanimously on Mount Rushmore of the greatest college basketball players of all time, and they are both in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Gail Goodrich and Jamal Wilkes are also Hall of Famers, with Marques Johnson a notable snub after missing out as semifinalists again in 2022.
Krzyzewski has overall coached one Hall of Famer – Grant Hill, who made it back in 2018 and has arguably the least qualified resume of any post-merger player to earn the distinction for his brief five-year peak . This is mostly due to injuries rather than Hill's talent or Krzyzewski's player development prowess, but even then, Coach Kay's lone Hall of Famer ranks down as well.
As for playing the Devil's Advocate, a strong argument is to be made from the comparison that claimed Krzyzewski was successful despite not having the all-time talents, while Wooden was drawn by him. But identifying generational talents, attracting them, letting them flourish, and setting them up for success off-campus is all part of the job, and it's still something Wooden has on Krzyzewski.
Hill never won an NBA title, and neither did Carlos Boozer, Christian Laettner, Luol Deng, Elton Brand or JJ Reddick. Abdul-Jabbar won six, Wilkes won four, Walton won two and Goodrich won one.
Wooden built the Pyramid of Success from the ground up, and he made its teachings and lessons so effective that those who learned its methods under his tutelage took those takeaways to the next level. It is difficult to embody the culture Wooden created, but his influence on Westwood and the basketball world is almost unmatched.
The Duke Brotherhood is strong and the Blue Devils are still a wildly successful program, really ascending to blue blood status under Krzyzewski's guidance if they weren't already. Becoming second best among the thousands of coaches who have clipboards and whistled at the college level is no easy task, and it should not be viewed as an insult to or against them.
Krzyzewski has just had a stellar career, and he should be commended for his success, but just remember – the coach lost the last game of his career to his fiercest opponent in the Final Four, while the Wizard of Westwood played the game. Left top, victorious at the end of another record-breaking championship run.