Most of you probably thought the same thing I did upon hearing of U of M head coach Josh Pastner leaving for Georgia Tech: Free at last.
It just felt like Pastner was losing control of the sinking ship that is Memphis basketball, and something had to be done.
However, just because Pastner had a rough last couple years with the program does not mean he did not do a good job with Memphis basketball.
First of all, he came in following the departure of one of the greatest current college basketball coaches, John Calipari, and only two years removed from the vacated 2008 season.
The rookie head coach was hired at the U of M at age 31, pretty young to take the reins of an arguably top-20 college basketball program in the nation.
He was previously an assistant at the University of Arizona, where he played his collegiate career, and where he won a national championship in 1997.
Most coaches in their first season as a head coach can tend to struggle.
In Pastner’s first season, he earned a 24-10 record, which is better than Calipari’s 21-15 ending to his first season at Memphis, and that was his second head-coaching job.
In fact, most past Memphis coaches weren’t as good as Pastner in their first season. In Gene Bartow’s first season, his team managed an 18-8 record.
Dana Kirk in his first season saw a 13-14 record. Only Larry Finch’s first season, which ended in a 26-8 record, was better than Pastner’s.
Even some of the best coaches in college basketball didn’t start out as well as Pastner. Roy Williams, current North Carolina head coach, began his career at Kansas and earned a 19-12 record his first season.
Current Louisville head coach Rick Pitino was 17-9 in his first season as a head coach at Boston University. Mike Krzyzewski, current Duke head coach, is regarded as one of the best coaches ever.
He began his coaching career at Army and was just 11-14 his first season and was only 17-13 his first year at Duke.
Achieving 30 wins in a single season is something most college coaches aspire for, but Pastner did so in just his fourth year.
It took both Calipari and Kirk six years at Memphis to get to 30 wins. Calipari did achieve 30 in his fourth season at UMass.
Bartow and Finch never made it to that mark. While Williams made it to 30 in just his second season at Kansas, it took Pitino 11 years to reach 30 wins in a season – and he had moved to two different schools and was at Kentucky by then. Krzyzewski also coached for 11 years before reaching 30 wins.
Pastner’s win percentage in his seven years at Memphis is better than most coaches during their first coaching job.
Pastner earned a .697 win percentage while at Memphis, also never seeing a losing record. Bartow, who was actually only at Memphis for four years, had a win percentage of .722, Kirk’s was .731, Finch’s was .642, and Calipari had a .742 win percentage in his first seven years at Memphis.
So, Pastner ranking fourth among those coaches is not bad. The only one of the other coaches who was above Pastner is his first seven years at the helm was Williams, at .784. Pitino had a .643 win percentage his first seven seasons, the last two of which were at Providence after leaving Boston.
Krzyzewski saw only a .529 win percentage his first seven years, the last two being at national powerhouse Duke after leaving Army.
And Calipari, who many use to compare with Pastner, had a .696 win percentage his first seven years at UMass, just barely worse than Pastner’s, but nonetheless, worse.
Pastner brought five years of postseason play to Memphis, and just like he said in his recent Georgia Tech press conference, he was just “an injury away or a transfer or two away from going to seven straight NCAA tournaments.â€
All that to say, while the last two years under him no doubt had plenty of turbulence, and it was most definitely time for a change, Pastner should still be considered successful at Memphis.
He came in and more than kept the team afloat when fans did not know which way the program would turn following the 2008 sanctions and departure of Calipari.
Josh Pastner may not be the next Coach K or Roy Williams, but he did do much better than most firsttime coaches would have, given the circumstances. And, another plus for Pastner, we still have all the wins that came under him.
