Image Credit: Jeremiah Holloway
By: Jeremiah Holloway (’22), Staff Writer
This season’s men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments featured a plethora of Black faces on the sidelines. Not just for a game or two in these tournaments, but for every round of them.
There were 16 Black head coaches in the men’s tournament and 12 for the women’s side. Though this still accounts for a small percentage – especially considering that both fields feature 68 teams – the success that these coaches enjoyed allows us to look at what they accomplished.
To close out an impressive 35-2 season, the Dawn Staley-led South Carolina Gamecocks took down the UConn Huskies on April 3rd to win the women’s basketball National Championship. Though all championship teams etch their names in history, this victory holds an added significance.
Staley brought home the second National Championship of her career with the win in Minneapolis. Her first title came in 2017, when her squad defeated Mississippi State. That win made her the second Black head coach in women’s basketball history to win a National Championship, the first being Carolyn Peck in 1999.
The accolades that Staley’s accumulated throughout her career at South Carolina thus far – a 336-105 record, two national titles, and two Naismith coach of the year awards – are the best example of Black Excellence in the current landscape of collegiate basketball coaching.
On the men’s side, UNC’s Hubert Davis led his team to the National Championship game during his first season as a head coach. Though much of the regular season was a roller coaster, he managed to lead the eighth-seeded Tar Heels to the final night in New Orleans where his team narrowly lost to the Kansas Jayhawks.
Davis, the program’s first-ever Black head coach, has already managed to make his presence in the team’s lore known. Of course, he played for the Tar Heels for four seasons, but as a coach, he defeated Mike Krzyzewski’s Duke Blue Devils twice in Krzyzewski’s final season.
And I’d be remiss to leave out Shaheen Holloway, who led the 15th-seeded St. Peter’s Peacocks to the Elite Eight: the furthest that a 15-seed ever made it in the NCAA Tournament.
When given the chance, it’s clear that Black head coaches are well suited for big moments. In the case of Staley, Davis, Holloway – and several others like Arizona’s Adia Barnes or Michigan’s Juwan Howard – they played at the collegiate level before. In some cases, the pro level.
High-profile games aren’t unfamiliar to them, so getting players to lock in for them isn’t a foreign task.
The success of Black head coaches in college basketball is noteworthy from a visibility standpoint. As it stands now, many (not all) of the iconic coaching figures in the sport’s past are white. But with what Staley, Davis, and others have done this postseason, the spotlight has shifted elsewhere and can create even more opportunities for Black head coaches to get their shot.
Not only did the coaches get their teams to the Big Dance, several made significant runs. Though the players on the court have to earn those wins, it’s the coaching staff that gets them prepared and leads their young teams where they need to be.
This year’s postseason has shown the success of Black coaches is more than ability – it’s opportunity.
Sources:
http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/tournament/bracket
https://gamecocksonline.com/sports/womens-basketball/schedule
