Athlon had an interesting look at the top coaches in college basketball recently. Michigan's Tom Izzo at the top of the list isn't a big surprise, but I was a bit taken aback that Jamie Dixon ranked significantly higher than UCLA's Ben Howland.
↵Howland, the former Pitt coach, has simply done more at this point. He brought the Pitt program out of the doldrums of college basketball and went on to reach three consecutive Final Fours with the Bruins. He also got to a National Championship game at UCLA. Dixon, meanwhile, has yet to reach his first Final Four in the same period of time.
↵Dixon has been a great coach at Pitt and is certainly one of the best coaches in the sport. But he simply hasn't achieved what Howland has - even with some very strong teams.
↵The rankings also took future projections into account, but Howland is young enough that he could easily coach another ten years if he wanted. When it comes to ranking the two, Howland gets the nod in my opinion.
↵For more on Pitt basketball, check out SB Nation's Pitt blog, Cardiac Hill.