These Coaches Lead, And the Wins Follow

Georgetown and Coach John Thompson III are the preseason favorite to win the Big East and are ranked fifth in the nation. (Toni L. Sandys - The Post)

It is easy to draw parallels between what Coach Rick Pitino did during his first six seasons at the University of Louisville and what Coach John Thompson III accomplished in his first three at Georgetown. Both men resurrected basketball programs that had fallen on difficult times, and both men took their respective schools back to the Final Four after an absence of nearly two decades.

"That's the comparison, but the difference is, Rick had won a national championship," Big East Commissioner Mike Tranghese said. "He's a brand name. So the Louisville exercise started differently. Georgetown had suffered a lot of losing for a long time, plus [Thompson III] came with the name 'Thompson,' so there were all these expectations."

This season, Georgetown and Louisville are widely considered to be the class of the 16-team Big East, with the potential to reach the Final Four. They were named co-favorites to win the conference in the preseason coaches' poll; each team received eight votes.

The Hoyas -- who are coming off a season in which they won 30 games, swept the Big East regular season and tournament titles, and advanced to the Final Four -- are ranked fifth in both preseason national polls; the Cardinals -- who won 24 games, tied for second in the Big East, and advanced to the second round of the NCAA tournament -- are one spot behind.

So Thompson III and Pitino are at the forefront of the Big East, which has always been a coaches' league, its identity forged in large part by the men who stood on the sidelines and won with distinct styles and big personalities.

"I think Dave Gavitt [a founder of the Big East] said it best: The NBA is about the name on the back, and the college game is about the name on the front," Tranghese said. "When the NBA introduced the hardship rule, we were all worried about the effect of that. I think what it's proven to us is it's reinforced the brand name, which is Georgetown/John Thompson, Connecticut/Jim Calhoun, Syracuse/Jim Boeheim."

It isn't easy to coach in the Big East, with its sheer size, variety of playing styles, and experienced coaches. The conference added two new coaches this season: Bob Huggins, who has the sixth-highest winning percentage among active coaches (.737), takes over at West Virginia, and Stan Heath, who led Kent State and Arkansas to the NCAA tournament, was hired by South Florida.

Their arrival means that 14 of the 16 head coaches have taken a team to the NCAA tournament, and the only two that haven't, Rutgers's Fred Hill and St. John's Norm Roberts, were assistants on NCAA tournament teams. Six coaches have coached in the Final Four: Connecticut's Calhoun, Syracuse's Boeheim, Huggins (at Cincinnati), Pitino (at Providence, Kentucky and Louisville), Thompson III and Marquette's Tom Crean.

"The one thing is, all these guys can flat-out coach," Pitino said. "There was a time when I first started coaching when I could say, 'You know, we're going to outwork this coach, or maybe we can out-prepare him.' Those days are long gone. Today, it's all about recruiting. In this type of conference, you've got to have great players to compete, and you have to have great depth."

Both the Hoyas and Cardinals have great players and great depth this season. For Georgetown, it's been a relatively quick process to get to this point. In Thompson's first season (2004-05), the Hoyas' rotation consisted of essentially seven players, none of whom were seniors. Now, Georgetown has an established core of players, led by senior center Roy Hibbert, a preseason all-American, and senior guard Jonathan Wallace -- both of whom were in that first seven-man rotation.

"It's incredible just how quickly and fast his program has risen to national prominence again," said Heath, who faces a steep challenge in building the Bulls' program (four conference wins in two seasons). "You've got to give him a lot of credit for retooling the program into a national powerhouse."

Pitino was well-established as a strong recruiter when he came to Louisville, after the success he had at Kentucky, but Thompson was an unknown quantity coming from Princeton. His first recruiting class didn't pan out -- only one player from that group, junior guard Jessie Sapp (National Christian), is still with the program -- but his subsequent classes have been impressive. The Hoyas now have three McDonald's all-Americans on their roster: sophomore forward Vernon Macklin and freshman guards Austin Freeman (DeMatha) and Chris Wright (St. John's).

Next year's recruiting class will be Thompson's strongest; he has unofficial commitments from four players rated among the top 100 seniors in the country, led by forward Greg Monroe, the No. 1 rated player according to Rivals.com. Thompson weighed heavily in Monroe's decision to commit to the Hoyas over Duke, Connecticut, LSU and Texas.

"He was a pretty big factor," Monroe told the New Orleans Times-Picayune. "He's a very intelligent man. He's very professional. He runs his program the right way. He's very hands-on. He's a very, very impressive coach, a very good coach, probably one of the best ones out there right now."

No team has won more Big East games (regular season and tournament) over the past two seasons than the Hoyas, who are 28-10.

"I think he's an unbelievable coach," Marquette guard Jerel McNeal said of Thompson III. "He makes it hard on the opponent, starting with the type of offense that they play, and getting the best shot selection and at the same time, letting his more talented players make plays. He's done an incredible job. He's definitely one of the premier coaches in the league and the country."