The Case for Coach Ham: FSU's Leonard Hamilton Announced as Naismith College Coach of the Year Finalist

The Naismith Award named its four finalists for Coach of the Year today, and it's hard to argue with this list: Scott Drew of Baylor, Brian Dutcher of San Diego State, Anthony Grant of Dayton, and Leonard Hamilton of Florida State. This is a close race, as each of these coaches did an excellent job this season, but who truly deserves the title?

🚨The @wernerladderco Men's COY finalists are here 👀 Who will climb to the top❓#Naismith2020 I #WhosNext pic.twitter.com/MXgAAnW4Vi
— Naismith Awards (@NaismithTrophy) March 18, 2020

To answer that question, we first have to answer a different question: what the heck is a "Coach of the Year" anyway? According to the Naismith Awards website, the Coach of the Year Award is "Presented annually to the most outstanding men’s and women’s college basketball coach who achieves tremendous on-court success."

Parsing this gives no help in such a close race. "Most outstanding" and "tremendous on-court success" are too vague to give a definitive answer here, as each voter probably has different versions of what those terms mean. So let's work through a few different definitions and see which coach has the best case for each. This article won't name a definitive winner, but will give key information about who should win given your own personal criteria for the award.

Coach Whose Team Most Exceeded Expectations of the Year Award

Why this definition? This is the definition that can have the most definitive answer.

To begin this conversation we first have to figure out what "expectations" you abide by. To me, going by the preseason AP Poll or preseason predictive computer rankings make sense. To measure where they are now, we need a metric for how good their season was. The postseason AP Poll provides one good measure for this, but postseason predictive computer rankings are a poor metric because they don't answer (and aren't trying to answer) this question. Strength of Record is a metric that actually attempts to answer that question, so we'll use that instead.

Here's how the coaches stack up in all four metrics:

Scott Drew	Brian Dutcher	Anthony Grant	Leonard Hamilton
Preseason AP Poll	16	Not Ranked	50th (Others Receiving Votes)	30th (Others Receiving Votes)
Preseason Kenpom	13	97	55	14
Postseason AP Poll	4	6	3	5
Postseason Strength of Record	2	6	7	5

All four teams had some of the best seasons out of any teams out there, only matched by Kansas, Gonzaga, and maybe Maryland. The deciding factor thus becomes each teams' expectations to start the year. Using any combination of these, it's clear that the mid-major coaches from Dayton and San Diego State overachieved far more than the coaches that started higher, Drew and Hamilton.

Our vote for "Coach Whose Team Most Exceeded Expectations of the Year Award" goes to: Brian Dutcher. His team was expected to be barely above average across Division 1, and despite some setbacks at the end of the year was still in line for a high 2-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Coach Whose Team is Best Relative to Departing Talent

This criterion is for the coach whose team lost the most talent and gives extra credit for recruiting talent to replace what was lost because recruiting is a key part of any coach's job. Teams that have more players coming back are expected to do better, and it's much more likely for a cohesive group of upperclassmen to overachieve than a team that hasn't played much together. It's easier to say a coach over-performed with the latter.

This definition excludes Grant by default, and Scott Drew isn't far behind. Grant's team is nearly in the top 50% for minutes continuity, per Kenpom. Not to mention he had stud Obi Toppin return to school -- most coaches don't get a legitimate national player of the year candidate to game plan around. Drew saw senior starters Makai Mason and King McLure depart, but those were hardly key losses.

Dutcher has a more interesting case here. His team ranked 250th in minutes continuity, but 44th in experience. His team lost two seniors and a player to the NBA. But he inserted his own player of the year candidate in Malachi Flynn.

Our vote for "Coach Whose Team Most Exceeded Expectations of the Year Award" goes to: Leonard Hamilton. The clear loser here [as in, the coach who lost the most talent] is Hamilton. Florida State lost five seniors and a first-round pick, as well as six of his top eight scorers.

Quick Hits

It is noteworthy that Hamilton and Grant developed all of their high-end talent themselves. Drew and Dutcher both depend heavily on the transfer market.
If you factor in recruiting, Hamilton is the runaway winner of high school recruiting. Unfortunately this only tells part of the story as transfers generally aren't included in recruiting rankings.
Fans can give Anthony Grant credit for recruiting and developing Obi Toppin, as well as scheming up a ridiculously efficient offense. In Dayton's game against Davidson, the Flyers only missed one two-pointer.

You can see why this is such a tough field, with so many deserving candidates.