Some great college basketball coaches have gone on to have great NBA coaching careers. Jack Ramsay went 231-71 (.765) for the Saint Joseph’s Hawks from 1956 to 1966, before he coached the Portland Trail Blazers to the 1977 NBA Championship. Ramsay posted a 864-783 record in the NBA, and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a coach in 1992.
A number of other great college basketball coaches though, have gone on to coach in the NBA, and other professional basketball leagues, and flopped miserably. Here are six great college coaches, who have each won over 70% of the college games they have coached, who had under .500 records as coaches in the NBA, and other professional basketball leagues.
One of these college coaches who flopped as a coach in the NBA did so for my favorite NBA team, the New Jersey Nets. It’s not a lot of fun watching a coach who had great success in college come to your NBA team and flop miserably.
Great College Basketball Coaches Who Flopped in the NBA (and ABA and WNBA)
Rick Pitino
Rick Pitino has an overall college coaching record of 609-222 (.733). Pitino won an NCAA Championship in 1996 with the Kentucky Wildcats. Pitino also coached the New York Knicks and the Boston Celtics in the NBA. While Pitino had a winning record with the Knicks (90-74) over two seasons, his record with the Celtics was 102-146. His overall coaching record in the NBA stands at 192-220 (.466).
I remember watching a college basketball game at Madison Square Garden while Pitno was a head coach in the NBA. Pitino was at the college game watching, and you could just see how into the game he was. I think he just likes coaching the college game more than he did in the NBA.
John Calipari
John Calipari has an overall college coaching record of 480-152 (.759). Calipari has yet to win a college championship, losing in OT to Kansas as Memphis head coach in 2008. John Calipari coached my New Jersey Nets team for parts of three seasons, and compiled a 72-112 (.391) record. Calipari got us to the playoffs in 1998, where we were swept by the Chicago Bulls in three games.
Jerry Tarkanian
Tark the Shark, as Jerry Tarkanian is known, compiled a 706-198 (.781) record as a college coach. He won a NCAA Championship in 1990 with UNLV. The San Antonio Spurs hired Jerry Tarkanian as their head coach in 1992. Tarkanian lasted all of 20 games, and went 9-11 (.450) as the Spurs head coach.
Clair Bee
Clair Bee compiled a 413-88 (.824) record in college coaching at Rider and Long Island University from 1929 to 1951. That is the second highest winning percentage in college basketball history for a coach. In 1953 and 1954, Calir Bee coached the Baltimore Bullets to a 32-107 (.230) overall record in the NBA.
Lou Carnesseca
Lou Carnesecca compiled a 526-200 (.725) coaching at St. John’s in college from 1966 to 1992. He took off from St. John’s from 1971 to 1973 though to coach the New York Nets in the ABA, and compiled a 114-138 (.452) record. The Nets did make the playoffs all three seasons and advanced to the finals in 1972, where they lost to the Indiana Pacers.
Nolan Richardson
Nolan Richardson compiled a 509-207 (.711) overall college coaching record at Tulsa and Arkansas from 1981 to 2002. He won a NCAA Championship at Arkansas in 1994. In 2010, the Tulsa Shock of the WNBA hired Nolan Richardson as head coach. Richardson went 7-38 (.156) with the Shock before they let him go during the 2011 season.