Cliff Notes: Ellis Becomes 10th Coach Guiding Four Schools to NCAA Playoffs
Coastal Carolina's Cliff Ellis became the 10th coach to direct at least four different schools to the NCAA Tournament shortly before UCLA's Steve Alford and Iowa's Fran McCaffery became the 11th and 12th. The lone coach in this category compiling a winning playoff record with each university is Eddie Sutton, who notched a 39-26 mark with Creighton, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oklahoma State.
Last year, Lon Kruger became the only mentor guiding five different schools to the NCAA tourney during his career - Kansas State (4-4 NCAA playoff mark), Florida (4-2), Illinois (3-3), UNLV (3-4) and Oklahoma (0-1). A play-in game loss against Tennessee left McCaffery as the only coach notching losing NCAA tourney marks with four different schools. Following is an alphabetical list including Ellis, Alford and McCaffery among the 11 coaches directing four different institutions to the NCAA playoffs:
| Playoff Coach | First School | Second School | Third School | Fourth School |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steve Alford | SW Missouri State (2-1) | Iowa (1-3) | New Mexico (2-3) | UCLA (2-1) |
| John Beilein | Canisius (0-1) | Richmond (1-1) | West Virginia (5-2) | Michigan (7-4) |
| Lefty Driesell | Davidson (5-4) | Maryland (10-8) | James Madison (0-1) | Georgia State (1-1) |
| Cliff Ellis | South Alabama (0-2) | Clemson (3-3) | Auburn (5-3) | Coastal Carolina (0-1) |
| Larry Eustachy | Utah State (0-1) | Iowa State (3-2) | Southern Mississippi (0-1) | Colorado State (1-1) |
| Jim Harrick | Pepperdine (1-4) | UCLA (13-7) | Rhode Island (3-2) | Georgia (1-2) |
| Fran McCaffery | Lehigh (0-1) | UNC Greensboro (0-1) | Siena (2-3) | Iowa (0-1) |
| Tom Penders | Rhode Island (2-1) | Texas (10-8) | George Washington (0-1) | Houston (0-1) |
| Rick Pitino | Boston University (0-1) | Providence (4-1) | Kentucky (22-5) | Louisville (22-9) |
| Tubby Smith | Tulsa (4-2) | Georgia (2-2) | Kentucky (23-9) | Minnesota (1-3) |
| Eddie Sutton | Creighton (2-1) | Arkansas (10-9) | Kentucky (5-3) | Oklahoma State (22-13) |