Where Does List Place Eric Musselman Among SEC Coaches?

One newcomer appears to have already upset the league's balance of power

Author:
Kent Smith
Publish date:
Sep 7, 2023 2:04 PM EDT

In this story:

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – The college football world is barely a week and a half into the season, so what better time is there for college basketball to drop a coaching list bomb right in the middle of it all.

College Basketball Report recently put out its rankings of the men's basketball coaches in the SEC. There are two things that stand out:
1) The SEC has quietly assembled an elite list of coaches the past few years.
2) Arkansas fans are going to have a good time reminding Alabama that Eric Musselman not only owns Nate Oats when it comes to winning in the NCAA Tournament, he also does so on coaching lists.

Musselman is tied with Oats for most wins over the past four years with 124 and leads the entire league by a wide margin with eight NCAA Tournament wins over that span. An argument can be made for Pearl at No. 3, but Tennessee's Rick Barnes dropping all the way down to No. 6 is a no go. He and Pearl have essentially the same record over the past four years and Barnes has had more recent success.

Speaking of recent success, since this is a list of "Current Ability," one name high up needs to take a significant drop. As we established a few weeks ago, Kentucky's John Calipari still carries weight to his name with his entire body of work, but has fallen quite a bit recently. Musselman and Oats are clearly grouped at the top, Barnes and Pearl fit neatly on the next line, but then there is a long drop down to Calipari in the next tier. He's struggled so much of late that Wildcat fans openly wished he would get the job at Texas during the season last year.

Perhaps the most shocking name on this list is Chris Beard. It's true that he has proven himself at Texas Tech and Texas. Since the list is on current ability, which we have to assume means coaching ability, then he belongs. If current ability means ability to win now, that's a different story. His adventures in Austin landed him in basketball purgatory. That's a win once in a decade or two with minimal support kind of place. Right now, Dennis Gates at Missouri is better positioned to have a surprise breakout season than Beard.

Of course, Arkansas fans don't care how the rest of the list shook out. All they care is to see their firebrand of a coach sitting at the top. There are 50 days until basketball officially gets rolling with exhibition games. Then it becomes a six month sprint for each of these coaches to prove the list wrong.
That is except for Musselman.