Commentary

Best coaches of the past five years

Bill Self, Bo Ryan and Mike Krzyzewski stand atop the possession-based list

Updated: May 4, 2011, 5:30 PM ET

By John Gasaway | Basketball Prospectus

Now that we've reached the month of May, the annual round of coaching changes has wrapped up. We now have 74 major-conference coaches in place and ready to go for next season. Of that number, however, just 30 coaches have been in their current positions for the past five seasons.

Today I want to examine those 30 head coaches. Having logged five years or more running a major program, these coaches represent the pinnacle of the profession. They have the jobs that many, if not all, head coaches and assistant coaches aspire to obtain someday. How well have these 30 coaches performed over the past five seasons?

To answer that question I've put together a five-season version of the "Tuesday Truths" feature that I post at Basketball Prospectus on a weekly basis during the regular season. But where Tuesday Truths has always looked at how well a team is doing on a per-possession basis, today we'll measure how well the coach's program has done, possession by possession, over the past five seasons in conference play.

To read the rest of John Gasaway's piece on the top coaches in every major conference, you must be an ESPN Insider.