Jim Larranaga accepted the head coaching position at Miami (FL) on Friday, meaning all the BCS head coaching positions are now filled. After deciding to stay at George Mason after the 2006 Final Four run, it seemed likely that Larranaga would stay at GMU for the rest of his career. But after a crazy buzzer-beating win over Villanova in the NCAA tournament this year, he decided he had done all he could at the school and decided to give the ACC a try.

There are occasionally coaches who fall into a school and stay seemingly forever. See Rick Byrd’s 25 years at Belmont as an example. But the reality is that most coaches want the challenge of winning college basketball games at the highest level. It must have been hard for Larranaga to lose recruits to programs like Virginia every year and not wonder how he would do in the ACC. Now he gets his chance.

For all the people making “retirement community” jokes about a 61-year-old coach moving to the state of Florida, I have two thoughts. First, Larranaga will probably embrace the humor. Second, Jim Calhoun won two national titles after his 61st birthday.

Two notes on Larranaga are now missing from the coaching series. First, regarding the coaching trees, Larranaga and Virginia Tech head coach Seth Greenberg were both assistants under Terry Holland at the University of Virginia in the early 1980’s.

Second, regarding the defensive four factors, here are Larranaga’s rankings:

eFG% against – 29th
Turnover rate forced – 35th
Defensive rebounding – 24th
Free throw rate allowed – 14th

In other words, his teams have been solid in all four factors defensively. 

Offensive Four Factors

Today, I look at the offensive four factors for coaches in the ACC, Big 10, and Pac 12. For returning coaches, I take each coach’s average performance with his current team. For new hires, I take the average performance with the previous team. Finally, I rank BCS coaches from 1 to 74 in each category.

Larranaga’s teams are balanced offensively, while the other ACC newcomers rely more heavily on one category. Whether by scheme or player development, both Mark Gottfried and Brian Gregory’s teams rely on crashing the offensive glass to get points. But neither of these coaches can match the offensive rebounding of Roy Williams’ teams.

Also, none of these newcomers is likely to match the offensive resurgence Steve Donahue caused at Boston College in his first year. Donahue immediately transformed Boston College into a shot-making machine, by continuing a perimeter-oriented-system that worked extremely well at Cornell. Jeff Bzdelik on the other hand, abandoned what had worked at Colorado because he had more “talented” athletes. But his offense immediately went in the tank. About the only thing Bzdelik’s offense did well last year was get to the line.

ACC

Coach

eFG%

Rnk

TO%

Rnk

OR%

Rnk

FT Rate

Rnk

Tenure

North Carolina

Roy Williams

52.2

14

19.6

40

39.7

4

39.6

15

8

Duke

Mike Krzyzewski

52.6

11

18.7

26

36.3

17

41.3

7

9+

Maryland

Gary Williams

50.0

46

19.9

48

36.2

18

37.2

38

9+

Virginia Tech

Seth Greenberg

48.5

61

18.4

21

34.1

39

38.9

20

8

Florida St.

Leonard Hamilton

50.9

31

22.5

72

34.4

36

36.7

42

9+

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Boston College

Steve Donahue

54.5

3

17.4

6

30.9

63

31.5

66

1

Clemson

Brad Brownell

50.3

40

20.3

53

33.5

43

38.5

24

1

Virginia

Tony Bennett

48.2

63

17.3

5

28.4

72

31.0

68

2

Wake Forest

Jeff Bzdelik

47.6

68

22.0

70

26.4

73

38.4

26

1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NC State

Mark Gottfried (at Alabama)

50.8

32

19.7

44

37.0

15

38.6

23

7

Miami FL

Jim Larranaga (at George Mason)

50.7

37

19.6

42

33.3

45

37.2

37

9+

Georgia Tech

Brian Gregory (at Dayton)

49.4

53

20.7

59

35.5

25

36.5

44

8

Thad Matta has had the best recruiting success in the Big 10 in recent years, and it has paid off with the top eFG%. Meanwhile, Bo Ryan’s flex offense continues to set the standard for low turnover rates.

Despite Michigan St.’s history as a great offensive rebounding team, they actually fell to 70th in the nation in offensive rebounding rate in 2011. Elite recruit Branden Dawson should help Michigan St. return to its historical dominance in that category next season.

Big Ten

coach

eFG%

Rnk

TO%

Rnk

OR%

Rnk

FT Rate

Rnk

Tenure

Ohio St.

Thad Matta

54.3

4

18.1

14

31.5

61

33.7

59

7

Wisconsin

Bo Ryan

50.8

33

16.5

1

33.4

44

37.1

39

9+

Michigan St.

Tom Izzo

52.0

18

21.2

64

37.4

10

38.0

29

9+

Illinois

Bruce Weber

51.7

21

19.0

29

34.8

31

30.3

71

8

Purdue

Matt Painter

50.1

45

19.0

28

32.3

53

35.5

50

6

Minnesota

Tubby Smith

50.7

36

20.6

56

35.6

23

36.8

41

4

Michigan

John Beilein

49.0

57

17.5

8

29.6

67

28.1

73

4

Northwestern

Bill Carmody

51.5

25

18.5

23

25.9

74

30.5

70

9+

Penn St.

Ed DeChellis

48.7

59

20.3

51

34.3

37

34.0

58

8

Nebraska

Doc Sadler

51.1

29

19.9

47

28.4

71

37.7

31

5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Iowa

Fran McCaffery

48.1

64

21.6

68

34.7

33

34.5

56

1

Indiana

Tom Crean

48.6

60

23.1

73

33.2

47

38.7

22

3

In two years at Montana, Larry Krystkowiak teams were fantastic at getting to the line and shot the ball extremely well. It will be interesting to see if he can bring those same qualities to Utah.

Tad Boyle’s team was fantastic at avoiding turnovers and shot a very high percentage last year. But Alec Burks has declared for the NBA draft and if he stays in the draft, Colorado may have trouble duplicating that performance.

Pac-12

Coach

eFG%

Rnk

TO%

Rnk

OR%

Rnk

FT Rate

Rnk

Tenure

Washington

Lorenzo Romar

51.1

30

19.5

33

38.9

7

36.4

45

9+

UCLA

Ben Howland

52.2

15

20.8

60

35.2

28

36.8

40

8

Arizona St.

Herb Sendek

52.1

17

19.6

41

30.3

65

35.0

53

5

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colorado

Tad Boyle

52.5

13

16.9

2

34.6

35

39.3

17

1

California

Mike Montgomery

52.7

8

18.3

20

32.4

52

38.9

19

3

Arizona

Sean Miller

52.1

16

19.5

34

31.5

62

44.0

3

2

Stanford

Johnny Dawkins

50.2

43

18.9

27

31.6

59

36.2

46

3

Washington St.

Ken Bone

50.8

34

19.5

35

31.8

57

40.8

9

2

Oregon

Dana Altman

48.2

62

17.8

10

30.4

64

30.8

69

1

Oregon St.

Craig Robinson

49.2

55

22.4

71

31.6

60

38.8

21

3

USC

Kevin O'Neill

48.0

65

20.5

55

31.7

58

35.5

51

2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Utah

Larry Krystkowiak (at Montana)

53.4

6

21.8

69

33.1

49

41.6

5

2