Fresh Faces: NCAA Final Four is Virgin Territory For Keatts, Oats and Painter

March 30th, 2024 - 14:29

Three Final Four coaching newbies are at the Final Four for the second straight season. All four coaches last year could have been Final Four newcomers if Rodney Terry's Texas squad didn't squander a 10-point lead midway through the second half in regional final against Miami (Fla.). The last time all four coaches were F4 newbies was in 1959 (California's Pete Newell/West Virginia's Fred Schaus/Cincinnati's George Smith/Louisville's Peck Hickman). This year marks the first time since 1979 for multiple coaches to make their F4 debuts with fewer than seven seasons of experience as a Division I head coach.

Hubert Davis realized coaching nirvana as rookie head coach by reaching national semifinals in inaugural campaign two years ago similar to fellow North Carolina mentor Bill Guthridge in 1998. In the previous 60 years, the F4 college rookie class also includes Steve Fisher (Michigan interim in 1989), Larry Brown (UCLA in 1980), Bill Hodges (Indiana State in 1979) and Gary Thompson (Wichita in 1965). Kansas State's Jerome Tang could have joined group but the Wildcats were upset in 2023 regional final by Florida Atlantic.

Final Four debuts were a long time coming the previous decade for Dana Altman (Oregon), Mark Few (Gonzaga) and Big Ten Conference coaches John Beilein (Michigan) and Bo Ryan (Wisconsin). Since the start of the NCAA Tournament in 1939, no coach ever took longer in his four-year college career to reach the DI Final Four than Beilein (31 seasons; 21 at major-college level). Ryan (30) and Altman (28) joined five other coaches to take more than Matt Painter's 20 years at Purdue to achieve the milestone - Jim Calhoun (27), Dick Bennett (24), Gary Williams (23), Jim Larranaga (22 with George Mason) and Norm Sloan (22).

There was at least one fresh face among bench bosses at the national semifinals all but once (1993) in a 27-year span from 1985 through 2011. Connecticut's Kevin Ollie joined Indiana's Mike Davis and VCU's Shaka Smart as coaches only in their second campaign to steer squads to the Final Four in the 21st Century. North Carolina State's Kevin Keatts, Alabama's Nate Oats and Purdue's Matt Painter joined the following list of coaches advancing to the Final Four for first time since legendary John Wooden's first F4 in 1962 (in reverse order):

*Subsequently returned to the Final Four.