Ranking MU coaches since Al

[tower912]

Agreed, thanks, Lenny.   

[dgies9156]

What is interesting is how the criteria for rankings differ based on what I think is age.

If you were a graduate of Marquette on or before June 1, 1982, your benchmark is closeness to a national championship. The closer the coach got, the higher he is rated. That's why Crean is number 1 in my book.

If you were a Marquette graduate between June 2, 1982 and June 1, 1990, or during the Deane era, KO is probably your first choice because he repaired the Marquette brand name and brought us back to the glory you largely missed on campus. You lived through some pretty bad basketball. The elders of the university at the time thought basketball was an after-thought and were more concerned with advertising the quality of some obscure philosophy professor than they were building up the basketball team.

If you were a graduate of Marquette after June 1, 1992 and did not attend Marquette during the Deane era, you're probably still angry at Crean and KO and would rate the Hillbilly #1.

If you are nostalgic for the Al era, think a basketball coach should be a totally nice guy and nothing more and think Miami of Ohio is a nice school in Oxford, Ohio, you would rate Hank #1. Your dementia made you totally forget March 1978.

If you flunked out of underwater basketweaving at Red Rodent U, played too much football without a helmet and forgot to take all your meds today, you might even consider Bob Dukiet a notable afterthought. Even this person would not consider his body of work worthy.

As a second note, perhaps it is revisionist history but given the pickle Marquette was in and Bob Dukiet's inability to coach or recruit, we probably should have made Hank a one-year interim coach when Majerus left. That would have given us time to do things right. Yeah, we would have lost recruiting momentum, but it would not have been any worse than when Dukiet was with us.

[MU82]

What is interesting is how the criteria for rankings differ based on what I think is age.

If you were a graduate of Marquette on or before June 1, 1982, your benchmark is closeness to a national championship. The closer the coach got, the higher he is rated. That's why Crean is number 1 in my book.

If you were a Marquette graduate between June 2, 1982 and June 1, 1990, or during the Deane era, KO is probably your first choice because he repaired the Marquette brand name and brought us back to the glory you largely missed on campus. You lived through some pretty bad basketball. The elders of the university at the time thought basketball was an after-thought and were more concerned with advertising the quality of some obscure philosophy professor than they were building up the basketball team.

If you were a graduate of Marquette after June 1, 1992 and did not attend Marquette during the Deane era, you're probably still angry at Crean and KO and would rate the Hillbilly #1.

If you are nostalgic for the Al era, think a basketball coach should be a totally nice guy and nothing more and think Miami of Ohio is a nice school in Oxford, Ohio, you would rate Hank #1. Your dementia made you totally forget March 1978.

If you flunked out of underwater basketweaving at Red Rodent U, played too much football without a helmet and forgot to take all your meds today, you might even consider Bob Dukiet a notable afterthought. Even this person would not consider his body of work worthy.

As a second note, perhaps it is revisionist history but given the pickle Marquette was in and Bob Dukiet's inability to coach or recruit, we probably should have made Hank a one-year interim coach when Majerus left. That would have given us time to do things right. Yeah, we would have lost recruiting momentum, but it would not have been any worse than when Dukiet was with us.

I graduated in May 1982 (hence my screen name). I give Crean "extra points" for the Final Four run but I still choose Buzz No. 1.

[77ncaachamps]

1. AL
2. Raymonds
3. Crean
4. Buzz
5. Murray
6. Chandler
7. Hickey
8. KO
9. Majerus
10. Deane
11. Nagle
12. Winter
13. Ryan
14. Lipe
15. Risch
16. Wojo
17. Dukiet

[WarriorHal]

1. Buzz
2. Crean
3. KO

4. Raymonds
5. Rick
6. Deanne

7. Dukiet

Wojo-- Silly to include him. But based on the potential of his 1st recruiting class, which he put together before ever coaching a game, he could turn out to be #1.