A lot has been said about MSU basketball head coach Tom Izzo over the past several weeks, and deservedly so. Izzo has once again led the Spartans to the Final Four for the seventh time.
Izzo’s career numbers place him among the best active coaches in college basketball. But how does he compare to the trio joining him in Indianapolis this weekend — Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski, Kentucky’s John Calipari and Wisconsin’s Bo Ryan?
Career Totals
This number has to be taken with a grain of salt, considering Krzyzewski has coached at least 500 more games than any of his cohorts. In fact, he’s coached more than double the amount of games Ryan has. Still, his 1,016 career wins are the most all-time in college basketball.
Izzo’s 495 career wins place him third among the group, trailing Calipari by 140 wins and holding an advantage of 109 wins over Ryan.
A career-winning percentage is a more valuable tool to use when dissecting these coaches. All four rank among the top-60 for all-time winning percentage, but who places first and last among the group might be a little surprising.
Calipari leads the Final Four coaches and ranks 13th all-time with a 78.2 winning percentage, which is four above Krzyzewski’s 76.6 percent mark.
Izzo ranks last in the group as he has compiled a winning percentage of 71.4 percent, which just trails Ryan at 71.9 percent.
Tournament Records
All of these Final Four coaches have been making the NCAA Tournament on a consistent basis.
After getting there, this is also where Krzyzewski, Calipari and Izzo start to pull away from Ryan. All three have at least 45 tournament wins and a winning percentage above .700. Meanwhile, Ryan is only 24-13 in the tournament and could not get past the Sweet 16 until just last season.
But Ryan is making his second consecutive Final Four appearance.
That falls short to the others however, who have a combined 25 Final Four appearances. Krzyzewski tops the list with 12 Final Fours and four national championships, while Izzo and Calipari have just one championship each.
Izzo does hold a slight advantage over Calipari in Final Four appearances with seven to Calipari’s six.
As a lower seed, however, Izzo thrives. His 13 wins as a lower seed are an NCAA Tournament record. MSU’s seven Final Four appearances since 1999 also lead the nation during that time, while Krzyzewski and Duke have only four.
