With some big coaching changes around the SEC and the addition of Texas and Oklahoma this season, who are the best coaches in the league?
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00:00Welcome in to another Bama Central Just a Minute alongside Blake Beiler. I'm
00:04Katie Windham and Blake we're in the middle of basketball offseason, portal
00:09news, coaching news, recruiting news, but it seems the dust has kind of settled at
00:15least for now coaches wise in the SEC as you know one coaching change at SMU
00:22kind of set off a huge domino effect around the country and now John
00:25Calipari is at Arkansas. Kentucky has a new coach Mark Pope and then Vanderbilt
00:32is also the other SEC school that has a new coach and so kind of looking at that
00:36obviously it was a huge shakeup with John Calipari going to Arkansas kind of
00:40with that news and also with Texas and Oklahoma joining the league this next
00:44year kind of how would you rank SEC basketball coaches what would be your
00:49power ranking and it would take too long to go through a top 16 so maybe give us
00:53your top five and you can do it in order one through five if you want or
00:55just give us your top five and we can let people in the comments find it out
00:59about who they think. Yeah I'll kind of go roughly in order I think my number
01:04one coach in the SEC right now is Nate Oates just with the the way that he's
01:09turned this Alabama program around the accomplishments that he's already made
01:13he's won two SEC tournaments, two SEC regular season championships, been to a
01:18Final Four which I think is kind of what has elevated him over the field right
01:23now and just the level that he consistently has Alabama at it's second
01:29to none like it is the most Alabama's probably the most consistent
01:34consistently at the top program in the SEC or at least they have been over the
01:38past four or five years in the time that he's been there so behind Oates I think
01:43you're right there with Auburn's Bruce Pearl and Tennessee's Rick Barnes I
01:47think both of those programs have had pretty equal levels of success to
01:52Alabama as far as winning the SEC Auburn has an SEC regular season title
01:58recently they have an SEC tournament title this past season Tennessee's done
02:02the same with the tournament title in 2022 and the 2024 regular season title
02:08so both of those programs you know Alabama Auburn and Tennessee are always
02:11in the hunt Tennessee obviously doesn't have the Final Four but they've gotten
02:15closer and closer every year while Auburn does have the Final Four back
02:19from 2019 so that's why I think I'd give Bruce Pearl maybe a slight edge there
02:24over Barnes and then the last two are two coaches that have had success at
02:29previous stops but they're at new places now I think I would have John Calipari
02:34in there and you kind of have to even if he's regressed a little bit recently
02:39whether that be with struggles with the modern game how to maximize his roster
02:46building he's faced all kinds of criticism for that and I think some of
02:49that's valid but Kentucky under Calipari was still really good even if they were
02:54losing early in the tournament and now that he's at Arkansas I mean he still
02:58has a national championship on his resume so knowing that it's hard to knock
03:02him completely out of the top five or anything like that even if it was 12
03:07years ago he's still one of the best coaches in the SEC he Arkansas's
03:11currently has one player on the roster but he's gonna put together a really
03:15talented team and I'm sure they're gonna be a contender under him Arkansas
03:19didn't pay that kind of money just to go get a coach that wasn't good anymore I
03:24think Calipari's maybe past his prime a little bit in terms of his hold on the
03:28college game but still he's a good coach and he's one of the best in the SEC I
03:32think it's five I think I'll go Ole Miss is Chris Beard because he has had a
03:38lot of success in college he's just only spent the one year at Ole Miss when he
03:43was at Texas Tech he obviously went to the Final Four went to that national
03:47championship game in 2019 it was the same Final Four that Auburn went to with
03:52Bruce Perlin so he has a Final Four under his belt he's been to a national
03:56championship game at a non-traditional power like Texas Tech which is really
04:01impressive and then obviously before some off-the-court issues he had Texas
04:05rolling in a really good direction he's already hitting the portal really hard
04:09this offseason I think that Ole Miss can be really good under him he's also a guy
04:14that other programs tried to poach away I know Arkansas was a program that went
04:20after him to try to get him to lead their program with Eric Musselman
04:23exiting and so I think I'd have him number five but then there there's a lot
04:27of really good coaches in the SEC I mean Florida's Todd Golden is really
04:31good you have Chris Jans at Mississippi State has gotten them to the tournament
04:35a couple times Buzz Williams at Texas A&M and then Texas and Oklahoma have
04:39pretty decent coaches too with Porter Moser at OU and Rodney Terry in Texas
04:43there's and I didn't even mention Mark Pope at Kentucky they're they're new
04:47hire and you know Kentucky's always gonna be a force so the way it's really
04:52cool to see the way that the SEC has transformed towards taking basketball
04:57seriously and there's such a good crop of coaches I didn't even mention the SEC
05:02coach of the year Lamont Paris like there there's so many guys as you keep
05:05going down the list that are good coaches and have their programs in
05:09really good spots and I think it's why the SEC is gonna be one of the most fun
05:12basketball leagues to watch over the next couple of years yeah that's kind of
05:15what I was gonna say is you you named all those coaches without even saying
05:19this year's SEC coach of the year I think he's top to bottom the depth the
05:23league is so good right now and a lot of it is because of the coaches that
05:27these schools have invested in and like you said I'm Kentucky it's maybe not the
05:31higher that their fans initially wanted but a guy that played at Kentucky and
05:34it's gonna have a lot of resources at his hands and has had success at other
05:37places that definitely we're not gonna invest in as much in basketball as
05:41Kentucky is you know that's gonna be interesting to see how all that plays
05:45out and then like you said there's young guys like Matt McMahon at LSU and Todd
05:49Golden at Florida and even Mike White at Georgia who you know they haven't had a
05:53ton of success there yet but he's a guy that had a lot of success in Florida and
05:56so I think really just top to bottom it's a stacked league and we see that
06:00in the SEC and all sorts of sports not just men's basketball it's football
06:04softball baseball gymnastics every weekend it's you're facing some of the
06:08best teams in the country within your league and that makes it really exciting
06:12and fun to cover but y'all let us know what you think in the comments who you
06:16would kind of rank as the best coaches in the SEC but that will wrap up today's
06:19just a minute thank you so much for watching