LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The faces of college basketball players change from year to year these days, as name, image and likeness inducements and the explosion of the transfer portal force coaches to rework their rosters almost every season.
Even coaches seem to change more frequently, perhaps a byproduct of the win-now pressure that comes with all of it.
But there is still a distinct old guard in college hoops — Rick Pitino, Rick Barnes, Tom Izzo, Kelvin Sampson, Mark Few and Bill Self, among others — who have served as caretakers of the game for an entire generation. They are coaches who have provided stability in a time of instability, and given their fan bases and the game itself a sense of familiarity and comfort.
The question is for how much longer?
Pitino, who led St. John’s to a 31-5 record last season, turned 73 in September. Barnes turns 72 next summer. Izzo, the longest-tenured coach in Division I basketball, will turn 71 during his 31st season at Michigan State. Sampson, coming off a loss in last year’s NCAA title game with Houston, turns 70 in October, and already has his son earmarked as the “coach-in-waiting.”
Even coaches who seem relatively young — Few and Self, coincidentally, turn 63 on the exact same day, Dec. 27 — are reaching a point where the stress of roster turnover, recruitment and the pressure to win could simply become too much.
In Self’s case, he underwent another heart procedure this past summer, though he insists he feels as good as ever.
“I always think about it,” Izzo said of walking away from the game. “I don’t like where the game has gone in many ways. It has nothing to do with paying players. I just don’t appreciate the movement and the way it’s gone at all. That’s my opinion, and I think that’s a lot of coaches’ opinions, but some are in the middle of their career and they don’t want you (reporters) ripping them for it. I’m at the end of mine. I really don’t care if you do.”
Such cataclysmic changes to college basketball helped to drive Villanova coach Jay Wright and Virginia coach Tony Bennett to retire earlier than most anyone expected. They probably played a big part in the decision of Auburn coach Bruce Pearl to do the same thing; he turned over the program to his son, Steven, after retiring less than six weeks ago.
Indeed, the game has lost several treasured coaches since the start of last season. With them went a vast amount of institutional knowledge, a track record of success, and a history of producing great players that helped to shape entire programs.
There was 76-year-old Jim Larrañaga who, early last season, stepped down from Miami, ending a coaching tenure that began as an assistant at Davidson in 1971. There was 77-year-old Leonard Hamilton, who stepped away after serving as a head coach at Oklahoma State, Miami and Florida State since 1986. And there was Fran Dunphy, also 77, who retired after a career based around Philadelphia and that included stops at Penn, Temple and LaSalle.
When you add Pearl to that trio, the four coaches accounted for four Final Four trips, 52 appearances in the NCAA Tournament, dozens of conference championships and nearly 2,500 wins — a staggering total by any measure.
“I coached obviously against Jim Boeheim and all the coaches that have moved on,” said Pitino, whose Red Storm are ranked 11th in the preseason AP Top 25. “Most certainly, a lot of them move on for different reasons. I feel like certain people like the transfer portal, NIL and so on. It doesn’t bother in me in the least. I approach …”
Pitino trailed off, before reflecting on a career that has taken six different schools to the NCAA tourney: “I have one advantage,” he said. “I retired for two years and was just like, I didn’t enjoy it as much as coaching basketball.”
That is one of the arguments for why the old guard soldiers on.
Another is the simple fact that they can still get the job done.
Sampson has his Cougars ranked second in the preseason poll after a second Final Four trip in the last five years. Barnes has Tennessee ranked 18th and Self has the Jayhawks at 19th as regular-season games begin next week. Gonzaga is right behind in 21st as Few leads the Bulldogs through their final season in the West Coast Conference.
“The guys that have been at one place for a long, long time, it’s almost like they’ve been in a different sport than those of us who have had to bounce around,” said Dusty May, who is beginning his second season leading Michigan.
As for Izzo and the Spartans, the Wolverines’ biggest rival this side of Ohio State?
“You can’t have anything but respect for their program,” May said. “Do I like them? Hell, no. Do I respect them? Absolutely.”
It’s a level of respect that an entire generation of coaches earned over time, whether it was Pitino getting his first top job as the interim coach at Hawaii in 1976, Barnes cutting his teeth at George Mason in the 1980s, Izzo learning the game’s nuances from longtime Michigan State coach Jud Heathcote, or Sampson beginning his coaching climb at Montana Tech.
Penn State coach Mike Rhoades has come to consider Izzo something of a confidant over the years, even though their teams have had some drag-out tussles on the floor. They talk frequently, about both basketball and life.
“He’s all about what is good in college basketball,” Rhoades said. “He’s what kids need right now, somebody to tell them the truth, and hold them to a high level. We need more coaches like that. But the game has changed and I understand why coaches want to move on. When that time comes for him, we’ll all be disappointed and bummed out.”
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AP Basketball Writer Doug Feinberg and AP freelancer Rich Rovito contributed to this report.
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By DAVE SKRETTA
AP Basketball Writer
