Manning the All-American Front: Tulsa's New Coach Seeks Another Miracle

March 30th, 2012 - 23:15

Kansas assistant Danny Manning, who won more than three-fourths of his games as an All-American with the Jayhawks (113-34, .769) assumes control of the Tulsa coaching position with an impressive pedigree. He comes from a program where headliners John Calipari, Tim Jankovich, Bill Self, Kevin Stallings and Mark Turgeon served as KU aides.

Manning likely won't hire a truck driver dad as an assistant coach similar to what Larry Brown did in the mid-1980s to help lure him halfway across the country from North carolina. Unless Manning goes where no man has gone before, it will take another miracle for him to win a higher percentage of games than he did as an All-American player. That's because it has never been achieved including by icon John Wooden, who won 84% of his games as an All-American player with Purdue before winning 80.8% of his games in 27 seasons as UCLA's celebrated coach.

Five active mentors - Steve Alford, Tommy Amaker, Mark Macon, Isiah Thomas and Corliss Williamson - are among the following 30 coaches who each posted a higher winning percentage over their college playing careers than they did in their stints as a major-college head coach:

All-American (School; Winning Mark as Player) Coaching Career Summary (Winning Mark as Coach)
*Steve Alford (Indiana; .724) SW Missouri State/Iowa/New Mexico (.634)
*Tommy Amaker (Duke; .783) Seton Hall/Michigan/Harvard (.579)
Forrest "Whitey" Baccus (SMU; .580) Southern Methodist (.437)
Alfred "Butch" Beard (Louisville; .783) Howard/Morgan State (.326)
Henry Bibby (UCLA; .967) Southern California (.526)
Charles "Tub" Bradley (Wyoming; .616) Loyola Marymount (.244)
Gary Brokaw (Notre Dame; .746) Iona (.493)
Bob Calihan (Detroit; .714) Detroit (.559)
Ernie Calverley (Rhode Island; .807) Rhode Island (.552)
Tom Churchill (Oklahoma; .725) New Mexico (.627)
Jimmy Collins (New Mexico State; .841) Illinois-Chicago (.512)
Bob Cousy (Holy Cross; .839) Boston College (.750)
Howie Dallmar (Stanford/Penn; .714) Penn/Stanford (.534)
Larry Finch (Memphis State; .750) Memphis State (.629)
Tom Gola (La Salle; .856) La Salle (.740)
Sidney Green (UNLV; .719) Florida Atlantic (.309)
Clem Haskins (Western Kentucky; .851) Western Kentucky/Minnesota (.585)
Walt Hazzard (UCLA; .773) UCLA (.621)
*Mark Macon (Temple; .729) Binghamton (.247)
Kyle Macy (Kentucky; .752) Morehead State (.424)
Willie McCarter (Drake; .646) Detroit (.407)
Jim O'Brien (Boston College; .641) St. Bonaventure/Boston College/Ohio State (.547)
John Oldham (Western Kentucky; .887) Tennessee Tech/Western Kentucky (.679)
Jeff Ruland (Iona; .773) Iona (.507)
Frank Selvy (Furman; .738) Furman (.427)
*Isiah Thomas (Indiana; .734) Florida International (.286)
Monte Towe (North Carolina State; .919) New Orleans (.473)
Paul Westphal (Southern California; .744) Pepperdine (.514)
*Corliss Williamson (Arkansas; .817) Central Arkansas (.224)
John Wooden (Purdue; .840) UCLA (.808)

*Active coaches in 2011-12.