The Ol' Lefthander

As a fan of '80s ACC basketball, I note the recent passing of Davidson/Maryland/JMU/Georgia State coach Lefty Driesell.  Although to be honest, I always thought that his induction into the Basketball Hall of Fame showed that the easiest way to make a major sports hall was to be a decent Division I basketball coach for a long, long time.  I mean, are we even sure that he was a good coach?  Two things -

First, even though he coached a bunch of first-round draft picks like Tom McMillen (#9 overall pick), Len Elmore (#13), John Lucas (#1), Brad Davis (#15), Buck Williams (#3), and Len Bias (#2), he never had a team win more than two games in the NCAA tournament.  After the tournament expanded beyond 32 teams, he never had a team get beyond the Sweet 16.

Second, in ranking ACC coaches from the first half of the '80s, Coach K, Dean Smith, and Jim Valvano have to be the top 3.  But are we sure that Lefty was better than either Bobby Cremins or his former Davidson player Terry Holland?  Plausibly being the sixth best coach in an eight team league doesn't scream Hall of Famer to me.

I know people will point out that perhaps his best team in '74 didn't make the tournament because eventual champion NC State won their legendary ACC tournament final in overtime and only one team per conference could make the tourney then.  But Maryland got to go the previous year when NC State was 27-0 because some assistant coach gave David "Skywalker" Thompson a sports coat to attend an athletics banquet or played in a meaningless pickup game with him.  And Terry Holland's '84 team took Houston with Hakeem to overtime in the Final Four with freshman Olden Polynice or Othell Wilson as its best player.