85 Expansion - Coaching Matters
Watching Gonzaga and Texas on Saturday evening, I thought how Texas brought in Sean Miller for a 6 year, $32 Million contract, with an additional $2 Million buyout from Xavier. Miller, who let’s not forget is a cheater, is an outstanding coach. He showed why a school like Texas would bring in a coach for such a high sum of money with a masterclass of set plays and great defensive schemes that allowed the Longhorns to go against legendary coach Mark Few and Gonzaga. In today’s NIL era, where teams now have multimillion dollar payrolls on the bench, it does no good if your leader isn’t the right one to steer the ship. Coaches have to be great at the X’s and O’s, recruiters, fundraisers, portal savants, and ego managers. The Coaches who only can do one of those things (as us Villanova alumni learned over the past 3 years) can’t cut it. Miller proved why the $32 million is worth every penny Saturday night, as did several other coaches throughout the weekend.
Additionally from Saturday, we saw the bracket’s most hopeful Cinderella in High Point go toe to toe with Arkansas and John Calipari. High Point’s coach Flynn Clayman received lots of media recognition for his locker room speeches, including Charles Barkley saying he had another year of eligibility and wanted to play for him. In the world of recognizing what a true Cinderella is, Clayman has a reported salary of $80,000, while John Calipari makes $8 Million. Do not be surprised if Clayman is bought out by another school next season in the coaching carousel of college basketball. But while my focus here is on the coaches, let’s not loose sight of arguably the best point guard in the country Darius Acuff of Arkansas who scored an outstanding 36 points including a clutch 3 to seal the game. Saturday also saw the advance of Nebraska, who is a sneaky great storyline. We don’t view many power conference teams as underdogs, myself included with not calling Texas a Cinderella. But Nebraska was 0-8 in NCAA tournament history having never won a single game, the last power conference team to hold that unfortunate record. They beat Troy for their first ever win, and now as such are advancing to their first ever sweet 16 after beating Vanderbilt.
Sunday, we saw further evidence of coaching mattering. Iowa State destroyed Kentucky 82-63, even after Iowa State lost arguably their best player Joshua Jefferson. While Iowa State was the favored team as the 2 seed over the 7, let’s look at the NIL difference - Kentucky spent $20.7 Million on their basketball program in 2025, while Iowa was half that at $10.5 Million. You can bet the seat for Kentucky coach Mark Pope is hot if he can’t make the 2nd weekend of the tournament when we have that payroll behind him. I’m sure the Wildcats will be calling Clayman in the offseason.
We then saw two of the most legendary coaches in Bill Self of Kansas and Rick Pitino of St. John’s go head to head. The final play for St. John’s was executed to perfection, with a high screen pulling the Kansas defense out of the lane and leaving a 1 on 1 layup opportunity for the win, and St. John’s first sweet sixteen appearance since 1999. There is much to be said about coaching methods on fouling, and Kansas fouling St. John’s because they had a foul to give prevented Kansas from playing as aggressively on the following sequence. But, it’s easy for me to judge that in hindsight. At the same time, I questioned Ben McCollum later that night versus Florida, calling a timeout with 4 seconds left to allow his defense to set. I wondered, isn’t there a strong downside to this timeout, giving Florida an opportunity to set up their offense? Turns out, it’s a good thing McCollum is on the sideline and I’m writing recaps at the computer, because the defensive setup allowed Iowa to prevent Florida from even getting a shot attempt to win the game, sending the defending champions home. As our resident Gator alumni admitted, the refs got under their skin and that starts with the coaching.
Coaching matters, and that is the most consistent tie between all 16 teams standing. Chris Walker echo’ed this after the St. John’s win, because him and I talked Saturday night and I told him that was what I planned to write for the Round of 32 recap in the 85 Expansion Bracket Challenge. I’m glad he listened to me, I think it’s a great point.
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To start off the bracket standings, let us reset with a stat correction, as my Quality Control Department (surprisingly not Carly, but my very competitive mother in law Lelia) caught that I credited my father an extra point in the first round. Make no mistake that this was in fact a mistake, I’m not trying to lose out here no matter how bad I am at these historically. With that single point less, it allows the sole first place to go to Jim, with 13 correct teams out of the 16 still dancing, including Texas. Even Longhorn fan Rob didn’t think they’d go that far (he actually didn’t pick them at all…). Ed and Darcy are tied then in second, also each with 13. The highlight of this being Ed having a perfect Midwest and East quadrant, calling the Tennessee win. Dane took the biggest L of the weekend, having Florida and Virginia in his championship game. I can personally attest that he is much better at playing college basketball than he is predicting it. The only saving grace for the Clousers is that Katherine will not have to question if she’d rank a repeat championship higher than her firstborn, which I was told was up in the air. I am also happy to assume that game didn’t induce labor based upon Jonathan texting me today. Ryan is having an off year, but has the unique championship game of Houston and Arizona that would allow him to propel to the top, along with only Ryan and Will Landis picking St. John’s over Duke. I’d also note that if Delta Air Lines hires Holt for work, which of course you should want to if you want quality construction while being delivered under budget and ahead of schedule, I would never write these emails on their time… I’ve written several times about Carly picking Illinois, and the Florida loss opens the door for that pick being that much more impactful, as does those who picked Houston in their final four.
We have a break in games until Thursday, as we have the unofficial Corn Championship highlighting the day with Iowa vs Nebraska at 7:30. I know we’re all bias in the Northeast, but St. John’s trailed for just the first time in the entire month of March vs Kansas, and I really think they can give Duke a hell of a battle on Friday at 7:10. No game currently has a line greater than 9.5 points (Michigan over Alabama) so we can all expect and hope for a continuation of some great battles that we saw in the round of 32.
Rory F Beglane
Founder of the 85 Expansion Bracket Challenge - www.85expansion.com
Villanova Enthusiast
0 Time Bracket Winner
1 Time Always March Winner