Two more former Arizona assistant basketball coaches became head coaches last week, Luke Murray at Boston College and Justin Gainey at North Carolina State.
Arizona assistant coach Justin Gainey in the first half during a game against Southern California Feb. 6, 2020, in Tucson.
That makes 18 Arizona assistant coaches/staff members who have become Division I head coaches since Lute Olson was hired in 1983. Doesn't that qualify Arizona as the "Cradle of Coaches" of college basketball in modern college hoops?
It might not compare to football's long-ago "Cradle of Coaches" at Miami of Ohio, a school that produced men such as Dick Tomey, Larry Smith, Woody Hayes, Bo Schembechler, Sean McVay, Ara Parseghian, John Harbaugh and Weeb Ewbank. But it's far more than the number of head coaches produced by the staffs at ASU (two) and UCLA (three) in that 34-year span.
Those ex-Wildcats have won 2,184 Division I college basketball games since Ken Burmeister left Olson's Arizona staff in 1986 to be the head coach at UTSA, followed by stints at Loyola of Chicago and Incarnate Word.
Here's the chronological list of the 18 ex-Wildcats who left Tucson to become head coaches.
– Burmeister, 187-182 at UTSA, Incarnate Word and Loyola of Chicago. NCAA Tournament record: 0-2.
– Scott Thompson, 150-209 at Rice, Wichita State and Cornell. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
– Ricky Byrdsong, 87-165 at Detroit-Mercy and Northwestern. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
– Kevin O'Neill, 219-245 at Marquette, Tennessee, Northwestern and USC. NCAA Tournament record: 2-4.
– Jessie Evans, 177-138 at Louisiana-Lafayette and San Francisco. NCAA Tournament record: 0-2.
– Phil Johnson, 41-48 at UTEP and San Jose State. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
– Rodney Tention, 30-62 at LMU. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
– Jay John, 72-97 at Oregon State. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
– Josh Pastner, 294-204 at Memphis, Georgia Tech and UNLV. NCAA Tournament record: 2-5.
– Jack Murphy, 78-149 at NAU. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
– Archie Miller, 261-192 at Dayton, Indiana and Rhode Island. NCAA Tournament record: 5-4.
– James Whitford, 131-148 at Ball State. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
– Mike Dunlap, 81-108 at LMU. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
– Joe Pasternack, 187-95 at New Orleans and UC-Santa Barbara. NCAA Tournament record: 0-2.
Arizona assistant coach Lorenzo Romar puts guard Rawle Alkins (1) through his paces, shooting long range jumpers on the court about an hour and a half before tip-off against Long Beach State at McKale Center, Nov. 29, 2017.
– Lorenzo Romar, 76-113 in his second stint at Pepperdine after leaving the Arizona staff. NCAA Tournament record at Pepperdine: 0-0.
– Damon Stoudamire, 113-132 as the head coach at Pacific and Georgia Tech. NCAA Tournament record: 0-0.
Now come Murray and Gainey, both from Sean Miller's staffs of the 2010s. They surely hope to outperform the other 16 ex-UA assistants whose college careers combined for a cumulative 2,184-2,307 record with an unremarkable 9-18 record in the NCAA Tournament. It's a reminder of how difficult it is to be successful in college basketball coaching.
Murray, son of Hollywood icon Bill Murray, has paid significant dues. After a year on Miller's staff, he has coached at Wagner, Towson, Rhode Island, Xavier, Louisville and now at UConn.
Gainey, whose son Jordan was part of Salpointe Catholic's 2020 state championship team, coached at Tennessee and Marquette after leaving Tucson a year before Miller was fired.
The deepest run in the NCAA Tournament by the ex-Wildcat staffers was Archie Miller's surprise burst to the Elite Eight at a No. 11 seed in 2014. No one else has even reached the Sweet 16. Best of luck to Gainey and Murray. You'll need it.
