1a.) Billy Donovan-- Whether it was because he had a perfect array of talent that came in at the same time or not, he still has two rings, and that is ultra-impressive. He has, however, struggled with his current roster, and his struggles will continue if Calathes does in fact stay in the draft.
1b.) John Calipari-- While Calipari doesn't have the hardware that Donovan has, noone in the country has been as consistently good in the NCAA tournament the last 4 years. IMO this puts him on the same level as Donovan. This, however, will be uncharted waters for Cal as it is the first time he has coached in a BCS conference.
2.) Bruce Pearl--has engineered an incredible turnaround of a crap program and now has it competing every year in the conference. Has won more SEC games than any other program during his tenure and has captured 3 SEC East crowns. The question is that with the new influx of coaching talent in the conference, can he sustain the success?
3.) Kevin Stallings-- Stallings has done an admirable job at Vanderbilt. He has a couple sweet 16s to his name and has competed in the conference most every year that he has been in Nashville. Now, he is bringing in a nationally ranked recruiting class. It will be interesting to see what he can do with some improved athleticism and talent.
4.) Trent Johnson-- did a nice job this year with a veteran team and captured the regular season conference crown. It will be interesting if he can continue getting the players that John Brady was getting because it seems fairly obvious that he is a much better coach than his predecessor.
5a.) Andy Kennedy-- has been solid at Ole Miss. It would have been interesting to see what he could have done without all of the injuries this year. He returns all key parts to a team that looks like it may be the preseason favorites to win the West.
5b) Rick Stansbury--has done a pretty nice job at MSU. Has been to the NCAA tournament numerous times but never made it out of the second round. His teams are always competitive in the conference but most of the time are middle of the road teams.
6.) Darrin Horn-- was impressive in his first year at SC. However, I'm not so sure Dave Odom wouldn't have had the same success with everyone returning. It will be interesting to see how Horn does if Devin Downey stays in the draft.
7.) Anthony Grant--I think this was a nice hire for Alabama. He had a nice 3 year run at VCU winning the conference 2 out of the three years he was there. His most notable accomplishment, obviously, was his win against Duke in the NCAA tournament. I think he is a definite upgrade to Gottfried as I thought Gottfried's last few years at Bama bore a striking resemblance to the Buzz Peterson years at Tennessee.
8.) Jeff Lebo-- has had a pretty dreadful run at Auburn. This year was by far his best job with the Tigers. But he loses basically everything off that team, and his track record of recruiting at Auburn has been less than stellar. Maybe the new arena will help ease the pain.
9.) Mark Fox-- the surprise hire of the offseason. No one would have predicted he would have ended up at Georgia. He did a nice job at Nevada making 3 NCAA tournaments, but it is certainly unclear how well he will be able to recruit at UGA. However, I like this hire, and he may move way up this list in the future.
10. John Pelphrey-- I have never been very impressed with Pelphrey. He was terrible this year, and if he doesn't get it turned around very quickly, he'll be packing his bags as he was definitely not the Razorbacks first choice during that hiring process.
lol:
