One of the four head coaches left working in the men’s NCAA Tournament will win his first national championship Monday night. It could be Houston’s Kelvin Sampson in his 36th season of running a program at age 69. It could be Duke’s Jon Scheyer in his third at age 37.
Auburn’s Bruce Pearl is on the Sampson side of things — 30th year as a head coach, 65 years old. Florida’s Todd Golden is just getting going, like Scheyer — sixth year as a head coach, 39 years old. It’s difficult to compare the quality of work of careers that are decades apart in length, but that is our charge in advance of Sampson-Scheyer and Pearl-Golden matchups in Saturday’s national semifinals at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
After scoring the coaches in a variety of categories on a four-point scale and ranking them, we may have a hint at which one of them will end up winning it all. Or at least that coach will have this victory as consolation while watching one of the others cut the nets.
Longevity
It’s a worthwhile category of its own, especially considering the way Sampson and Pearl have been able to hang in and thrive in the era of (out-in-the-open) player compensation and player movement.
4: Sampson
3: Pearl
2: Golden
1: Scheyer
Achievement
Sampson is 798-353 — what a way this could be to reach 800. Like Pearl (706-267), Sampson started at a lower level (Montana Tech, Pearl at Southern Indiana) and has done nothing but win at every stop. Sampson is one of 16 coaches to lead two different schools to the Final Four. That and his run of recent dominance at Houston give him the edge. Golden has won at San Francisco and Florida, two programs that aren’t advantaged like Duke. Still, Scheyer is winning more than 80 percent of his games.
4: Sampson
3: Pearl
2: Scheyer
1: Golden
Will Kelvin Sampson pick up win No. 800 in San Antonio? (Jamie Squire / Getty Images)
Mentors
No one is topping the top reference on Scheyer’s resume, Mike Krzyzewski. Sampson learned from a good coach at Washington State, Les Stevens, and then took that program to another level. But he also credited his graduate year under Jud Heathcote at Michigan State — 1979-80, the year after the Magic Johnson-led national championship — as being formative. Pearl was a Tom Davis guy all the way, assisting him at Stanford and Iowa before striking out on his own. Golden played for Randy Bennett at Saint Mary’s and then for Pearl at the Maccabiah Games in Israel in 2009. He later joined Pearl’s staff at Auburn. So yeah, having Pearl as a mentor gives Golden the edge over Pearl.
4: Scheyer
3: Golden
2: Sampson
1: Pearl
Resources and other supporting factors
Who’s doing the most with what they’ve got? Pearl ($5.96 million in pay, by the way) is the one coach here doing unprecedented things at a place that never cared for basketball the way it does now. His is a football school all the way. Yes, that means Pearl and Golden ($3.6 million) both have that sweet SEC football money, but that also means fierce competition for NIL dollars.
Sampson ($4.6 million) has reversed a tradition-rich but moribund program, elevating to the Big 12 and continuing to thrive. Scheyer (reportedly more than $7 million, but Duke is a private school and not subject to open records laws) has a ton of pressure succeeding Krzyzewski, but also every advantage. For the record, none of these programs is believed to be at the very top of the NIL pay scale this season. Cooper Flagg, it should be noted, came in with the national marketability to make a ton of money this season off “actual NIL.”
4: Pearl
3: Sampson
2: Golden
1: Scheyer
NCAA rule following
The fact that no one cares about NCAA rules anymore does not mean no one ever cared — in particular, other coaches who actually followed said rules. Sampson got a five-year show-cause from the NCAA in 2008 for making impermissible phone calls to recruits while at Indiana, the NCAA saying he lied to investigators. That was also the crux of the Pearl case — which started with a recruit at a cookout at his house — that got him fired from Tennessee and given a three-year show cause. Auburn also got four years of probation, and Pearl a two-game suspension, in 2021 after an investigation that involved the FBI.
4: Scheyer
4: Golden
1: Sampson
0: Pearl
Basketball identity
Sampson’s is the clearest and easiest to identify. The Cougars are going to grab your offense, squeeze it, put it in a box and stomp on it, just like his Oklahoma Sooners Final Four team of 23 years ago did. He’s also developed many great point guards. Does he have enough shooters this year to finish the deal for the first time?
Pearl has always been a pressing, high-tempo, self-described “gambling” coach, but to his credit, he listened to son and associate head coach Steven Pearl this season and slowed it way down to maximize his team’s strengths.
Florida and Duke play aesthetically pleasing basketball with size and length as bullying traits. Many of Duke’s best teams over the years have leaned on ferocious man defense, but the prevailing identity is having better players and fitting scheme to their strengths. Which is what smart coaches do.
4: Sampson
3: Pearl
2: Scheyer
1: Golden
Recruiting and development
Take it all together, high school recruiting and portal adds. Golden and Scheyer have been effective in both areas. Scheyer has done a masterful job of building the right team around Flagg — which is actually more impressive than getting Flagg. Duke is going to land superstars until further notice and until whoever’s in charge screws it up.
Golden’s star, Walter Clayton Jr., was the original find of Rick Pitino. Several of his returnees from last season improved significantly. But the two Baby Boomers have long track records of excellence. Big recruits, no-name recruits into stars and portal wins. Johni Broome, the Morehead State transfer who has developed into a national player of the year candidate, tilts it slightly toward Pearl. Recency bias for the win.
4: Pearl
3: Sampson
2: Scheyer
1: Golden
Playing career
Scheyer played four years under Krzyzewski, winning the national championship in 2010 as a senior and second team All-American. Golden was a solid guard at Saint Mary’s. Sampson played for his father, John W. “Ned” Sampson, at Division II Pembroke State (now UNC Pembroke). Pearl didn’t play for Davis at Boston College. He was a student manager and got into coaching from there. Managers work hard, too.
Scheyer: 4
Golden: 3
Sampson: 2
Pearl: 1
Media darlingness
Hey, don’t laugh, this matters! It’s not about whether we like you — it’s about whether you can use us to better your cause. We’re actually very easy to use. Smart coaches know how much this can help with recruits and fans (read: potential donors) as well. Everyone here is good — these are basketball coaches, not football coaches — but Pearl is must see/must listen. You never know what may come out of his mouth. Scheyer seems genuinely interested in giving insightful and revealing answers, which means he understands that media are simply conduits to the people.
Pearl: 4
Scheyer: 3
Golden: 2
Sampson: 1
Final results
Sampson: 24
Pearl: 23
Scheyer: 23
Golden: 19
If these scores apply to the games, we’ll be talking about Houston and Auburn on Monday night, a rematch of the Tigers’ 74-69 win in November at the Toyota Center in Houston. Advantage Sampson? Maybe. But Pearl remains the only known coach in NCAA history to beat a top-five team away from home after two of his players got in a fight on the plane and forced the pilot to turn the plane around.
(Top photo of Todd Golden and Bruce Pearl: John Reed / Imagn Images)