Tom Izzo or Bob Knight, best Big Ten coach ever? It's closer than you think, and it's not over
As he prepares to pass Bob Knight for the most wins in Big Ten men's basketball history, fittingly with a first shot at the record Tuesday against Indiana, he is not supplanting him as the best coach the Big Ten has seen.
'It's the national championships,' Izzo said, pointing to the late Knight's 3-1 edge in that category. 'Those are the things that separate coaches. In football, what separates Nick Saban? The (seven) national championships.'
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Izzo's right, though his close friend Saban's career actually serves as an argument on his behalf in a debate that is closer than you might think. Before getting into it, why have it? Because it's a good one, and because we love GOAT arguments in sports. Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes will raise voices and redden faces on both sides of their comparison for years to come.
In college hoops, conference races and rivalries mean so much to involved parties and devoted fans. The arenas, the scenes, the personalities, the unforgettable games, they stand on their own each year before the bracket is unveiled and the casual fan arrives. Conference coaching supremacy is like an elimination round on the way to the larger GOAT discussion.
"I don't really give a sh*t about the first half. But I do care about all of you for giving me 30 great years." 🙌
Tom Izzo delivers an elite message to Breslin Center after tying Bob Knight's 353 Big Ten wins 🤩 @MSU_Basketball pic.twitter.com/HgwSZLcZ8J
— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) February 8, 2025
John Wooden will always be the Pac-12's (or Pac-10's, or Pac-8's) greatest. It's Mike Krzyzewski in the ACC. It's one of those two as the best men's college basketball coach of all time, most would agree. Wooden's 10 titles to Krzyzewski's five might make it an easy call for you. Circumstances and eras should be considered, though, and make it closer.
It's Adolph Rupp in the SEC. It's Bill Self in the Big 12, unless you want to make a case for Henry Iba — who also had two titles and who devised the motion offense that Knight took to great heights. The Big East is fascinating. Jim Calhoun and his three titles? Jay Wright with his two? Jim Boeheim had one, but he's the only coach other than Krzyzewski to win 1,000 games at the highest level of the sport. John Thompson had one, but he's one of the most important figures in American sports.
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Oh, and Rick Pitino might actually be a better coach than all of them. But longevity and achievement over an extended period at one place have to be part of this. We're having this conversation because Izzo, in his 30th season coaching the Spartans, is about to get Big Ten win No. 354, one more than Knight collected in 29 seasons of coaching the Hoosiers.
Coaching that long at one place, at the highest level, is a separator all on its own.
Otherwise, the Big Ten debate could include three Izzo peers and rivals who did some of the best coaching the league has seen. Thad Matta collected five Big Ten championships and two Final Fours at Ohio State. He almost got the Big Ten the national championship it has been waiting on since Izzo and the Spartans won it all in 2000, but Florida was too good in 2007.
John Beilein transformed a moribund Michigan program into something special, with its first two Big Ten championships since the 1980s and two runs to the national championship game. Pitino's Louisville in 2013 — vacated though that title turned out to be — and Wright's Villanova in 2018 were a little bit better. But what a run.
Give a nod, most of all, to Bo Ryan. Unlike Matta (12-16 against Izzo) and Beilein (9-14), he got the better of the Spartans coach. Especially early. The '0 for Bo' T-shirts were selling faster than Spotted Cow drafts in Madison when Ryan was 6-0 against Izzo.
Ryan ended up with a 16-12 edge, two Final Fours, a team that should have beaten Duke in the national championship game in 2015 and the best winning percentage overall (.737) and in Big Ten games (.717) of anyone who coached in the league for at least 10 years. Had 10 of his years in Platteville been spent in Madison instead, this would be a three-coach debate — presuming at least one national championship in there.
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Izzo has that one from a quarter century ago. The chase for a second is why he's still doing this at 70 years old and breaking records he never imagined he would approach.
'It's just, it's embarrassing, it's humbling, it's exciting, it's all those words in one,' Izzo said. 'But to me, Bob Knight would still be the best Big Ten coach no matter what I do, because of the three (national) championships but also the 11 Big Ten championships.'
That's the record, tied with Purdue's Ward 'Piggy' Lambert. Izzo is one back with 10 and has a team in a heated race right now to get No. 11. Knight got his Big Ten wins in one fewer season, and in fewer games — he was 353-151, a .700 winning percentage, second to Ryan and ahead of Lambert's .685 for coaches of 10 years or more. Izzo is 353-172, good for fourth with a winning percentage of .672.
But Izzo also has 26 straight NCAA Tournament bids, college basketball's all-time record. That's astounding consistency, at a program that was strong when he inherited it from late mentor Jud Heathcote — who won it all with Magic Johnson in 1979 and is still eighth with 182 Big Ten wins — but not a program in position to do what he's done.
And yes, this is a fair comparison, though the 1970s Hoosiers played at a time when NCAA bids were much more scarce. Knight's 1984-85 team missed the tournament in the first year of expansion to 64 teams, robbing him of what would have been a streak of 21 to close his tenure at Indiana.
Izzo went 5-3 against Knight, getting his first Big Ten win against him in 1996. The last time they met, Knight's Hoosiers pulled a home upset, the last loss for the 2000 Spartans on the way to the national title. Izzo also outperformed Knight in the NCAA Tournament.
That is, except for the fact Knight is one of 16 coaches in the history of the sport with more than one national championship, and Izzo isn't. Knight is one of six with three or more, tied with Calhoun and Roy Williams, behind only Wooden, protege Krzyzewski and Rupp.
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But Izzo has an 8-5 edge in Final Fours. Only Krzyzewski (13), Wooden (12), Dean Smith (11) and Williams (nine) have more. Izzo is fifth with 56 NCAA Tournament wins, Knight 11th with 45. That includes three at Texas Tech. Izzo is 56-25 in the tournament, a winning percentage of .691. Knight was 42-21 in NCAA games at Indiana, a .667 clip.
Izzo is the greatest one-championship coach in the history of the NCAA Tournament. It's a distinction he'd rather not have. He'd rather be in the exclusive club of multiple-title winners. Wooden told him about that club and how difficult it was to join shortly after Mateen Cleaves, Morris Peterson and Charlie Bell led Izzo to his first title.
In the years since that conversation, he watched Calhoun, Williams, Wright, Billy Donovan and Dan Hurley join it. Had Izzo's Draymond Green-led Spartans finished the deal in 2010, he probably would have made the NBA leap that beckoned so many times during his tenure.
But it is a distinction. And the chase has Izzo here — breaking a record that didn't look approachable when Knight's Indiana tenure ended — still winning at a place he turned into a traditional power. And doing it as the current state of college athletics inspires many of his peers to bail.
What if Saban, whose Michigan State coaching tenure started in 1995 along with Izzo's, had stayed in East Lansing rather than move on to win titles at LSU and Alabama? Would he have approached seven championships? Would he have one?
And can you imagine Knight coaching at a time of players transferring freely and getting paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year? This 2024-25 team is a demonstration of Izzo's ability to adapt and keep producing tough, unselfish teams in an era that discourages them.
All things considered, Izzo is right there with Knight. A tick beneath him. He doesn't need two or three national more national championships to pass him. Just one. That's all.
(Photos: Gary Mook / Allsport; Rey Del Rio / Getty Images)
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