As you know, Jim Boeheim won his 903rd game last night, sliding him past Bobby Knight and into second place on the all-time wins list.*
And, as usual, Dana O’Neil of ESPN.com pretty much hit the nail on the head when it comes to Boeheim’s achievement: what makes it so impressive is that you have to be borderline insane to thrive as a college basketball coach, and Boeheim’s been doing it for the better part of four decades.
I think it’s safe to say that Boeheim isn’t going to catch Mike Krzyzewski in first place. He’s currently 36 wins behind the Duke head coach, who is three years younger. But is there a coach that has a chance to catch Coach K?
If I was a betting man, I’d put my money on Brad Stevens, regardless of whether or not he tries to claim he doesn’t want to reach 900 wins, or Bill Self. Stevens is 36, already has 149 wins and will either continue to mow down A-10 opponents while at Butler or take over a job coaching the next Blueblood that offs their head coach. Self is 50 and has 487 career wins, and based on the way that his Kansas program is winning Big 12 titles, he could legitimately average 30 wins per season for the rest of his career.
The folks at ESPN put together their own chart of potential 900 win candidates. Their favorite: Bob Huggins.
Who do you think will crack that barrier next?
*(For the purposes of this post, we’re only referring to Division I wins on the men’s side.)
You can find Rob on twitter @RobDauster.