Fresh Faces: Beard, Bennett and Pearl Make Final Four Coaching Debuts

March 30th, 2019 - 10:11

Chris Beard (Texas Tech), Tony Bennett (Virginia) and Bruce Pearl (Auburn) realized coaching nirvana by reaching the national semifinals for the first time. Final Four debuts were a long time coming earlier this 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). Ryan (30) and Altman (28) joined five other coaches to take more than 20 years to achieve the milestone - Jim Calhoun (27), Dick Bennett (24), Gary Williams (23), Jim Larranaga (22) and Norm Sloan (22). Dick Bennett is Tony's father.

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. In 2018, Loyola of Chicago's Porter Moser joined the following list of coaches advancing to the Final Four for first time since field expanded to at least 64 teams in 1985 (in reverse order):

*Subsequently returned to the Final Four.