johnny orr

Beilein by Fuller, Orr and Ooster via Bentley.

I got this question from PeteM on the board: Where does John Beilein rank among Michigan's all-time basketball coaches?

The question is subjective since everyone has their own criteria. Mine: wins (total), winning percentage, Big Ten regular season titles, tournament success, All-Americans/NBA prospects, and general good guy-itude.

The Candidates:

Coach	Seasons	Wins	Avg 30*	B10	NCAA**	AAs	NBA
John Beilein	2008-'14	150	18-12	2	2.14	2	3†
Steve Fisher	1989-'97	185	21-9	-	3.00	3	7
Bill Frieder	1981-'89	189	20-10	2	1.13	2	10
Johnny Orr	1969-'80	209	19-11	2	1.25	4	7
Dave Strack	1961-'68	113	17-13	3	1.88	4	7
Bennie Oosterbaan	1939-'46	81	16-14	-	-	-	2
E.J. Mather	1920-'28	108	20-10	3	-	4	-

Non-candidates for completeness:

Coach	Seasons	Wins	Avg 30*	B10	NCAA**	AAs	NBA
Tommy Amaker	2002-'07	108	17-13	-	-	-	4
Brian Ellerbe	1998-'01	62	15-15	-	0.50	-	2
Bill Perigo	1953-'60	78	13-17	-	-	-	1
Ernie McCoy	1949-'52	40	14-16	-	-	-	-
Ozzie Cowles	1947-'48	28	20-10	1	1.50	-	-
Cappy Cappon	1932-'38	78	17-13	-	-	-	-
George Veenker	1929-'31	35	22-8	1	-	-	-
Elmer Mitchell	1918-'19	24	17-13	-	-	-	-

I kept Cowles out of it since this was getting long and he only coached for a few (wild) seasons, wherein he dragooned football stars and developed the pick and roll.

Chartnotes:

For ease, I call the 2013-'14 season "2014" etc.

* Rather than winning % I showed their average record over a 30-game season.

** NCAA tournament factor, equivalent to average number of tournament games his teams would play in. A 1.00 means his average team will make the tourney and go out in the 1st round. I took out the play-in rounds.

† This could as well be 7 or 8: Manny Harris was recruited by Amaker but played his entire career for Beilein. Stauskas, GRIII, LeVert, and McGary at least can be counted as future NBA players. It's too early to say the same for Walton/Irvin but it's not a bad bet either.

I ended up breaking this up into two posts because it was getting long, so here's the candidates chronologically through Johnny Orr:

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Mather [via Wikipedia]

E.J. Mather (1920-'28)

Career at M: 9 seasons, 108 wins (67%), 3 Big Ten titles (1 outright)

All-Americans: Bennie Oosterbaan (1927 & '28), Richard Doyle (1926), Harry Kipke (1924)

Pros: Kind of pre-dates that.

Story: Took over a young program and went 3-9 his first year, then tied for the Big Ten championship his second, winning his last 8 games of the season to tie Purdue and Wisconsin at the end. The 1926-'27 season, when Bennie Oosterbaan lent his talents, was the best; Michigan went 10-2 in-conference and 14-3 overall. Soon after that season Mather had major surgery for cancer, and wasn't the same after that. Yost coached the 1927-'28 team in Mather's name; the cancer claimed his life that August.

Thing: Mather was also a Yost football assistant, and two of his players later became football coaches.

Better than a Beilein: It's tough to judge that far back or guess what the future might have held, but he didn't have a nationally competitive team until his 8th year so I'm comfortable putting him behind.

[After the jump it gets tougher]

Johnny Orr (left) and his successor at U-M, Bill Frieder, in 1976 (via)

Johnny Orr, Michigan's all-time leader in basketball coaching wins and a legend in both Ann Arbor and Ames, Iowa, passed away today at the age of 86. The following is courtesy of the Iowa State athletic department [emphasis mine]:

AMES, Iowa - Johnny Orr, the man credited with resurrecting a once-dormant Iowa State men’s basketball program and energizing an entire fan base, passed away today. He was 86 years old.

Orr was one of the nation’s most successful basketball coaches during his 29-year head coaching career (1964-66, 1969-94). He compiled a 466-346 career coaching mark and led 10 teams to NCAA Championship berths while at Massachusetts, Michigan and Iowa State.

“He was my hero,” said Iowa State head basketball coach Fred Hoiberg, who played three years for Orr. “As a kid, just to see him walk out of that tunnel was what you waited for on game nights. Just to see his enthusiasm and passion. He was a father figure to so many of us. He impacted so many lives and made all of us better people. Not only was he a great basketball coach, he was even a better person.”

Orr inherited a downtrodden Iowa State program that had produced losing seasons in five of the last six years prior to his arrival in 1980-81. He spent 14 years roaming the sidelines at Hilton Coliseum, making steady improvement and leading the Cyclones to a school-record six NCAA Championship appearances and five 20-win seasons. Orr retired in 1994 as Iowa State’s all-time winningest coach with a 218-200 record.

...

Hilton Coliseum erupted when Orr made his entrance fist-pumping to the “Tonight Show” theme. It usually spelled doom to the opposing team, even if the Cyclones weren’t the favorites. Orr’s Cyclones defeated top-25 opponents 20 times at home and he owns 12 of Iowa State’s 29 all-time victories vs. top-10 opponents.

Iowa State’s home-court dominance in sold-out Hilton Coliseum under Orr created a frenzied atmosphere that was second to none. The local and national media picked up on it, and soon the term “Hilton Magic” was created when Des Moines Register writer Buck Turnbull used it in one of his stories after another huge Cyclone victory at home. The moniker still is prevalent today.

Orr’s 1983-84 team turned the corner with a National Invitation Tournament (NIT) appearance, followed by an NCAA Championship berth in 1985, Iowa State’s first NCAA bid in 41 years.

The 1985-86 Cyclone squad was possibly his best. Led by future NBA all-star Jeff Hornacek and Iowa State’s all-time leading scorer Jeff Grayer, the Cyclones finished with a then-school-record 22 wins and placed second in the Big Eight Conference at 9-5. After securing its second-straight NCAA berth, the Cyclones advanced to the Sweet Sixteen with a victory over No. 2 seed Michigan, Orr’s former school.

The win over the fifth-ranked Wolverines was, “the greatest of my career” Orr beamed afterwards and cemented his already enormous popularity among the Iowa State faithful.

Orr’s Cyclone teams would later make NCAA appearances in 1988, 1989, 1992 and 1993 and annually ranked in the top 25 nationally in scoring. Iowa State averaged over 80 points per season six times in the Orr era, including a school-record 90.2 ppg in 1987-88, which ranked ninth nationally. The top four scorers in Iowa State history were coached by Orr (Grayer, Barry Stevens, Hoiberg, Victor Alexander).

Orr coached six Cyclones who earned first-team all-Big Eight honors 10 times. He mentored a total of six Cyclones who went on to a career in the NBA (Grayer, Hornacek, Stevens, Alexander, Hoiberg, Loren Meyer). Grayer was an All-American and is the only Cyclone men’s hoopster to compete on a United States Olympic Basketball team, earning a Bronze Medal at the 1988 Olympics.

A native of Taylorville, Ill., Orr graduated from Beloit (Wisconsin) College in 1949, where he was a two-time All-American in basketball. He coached at the high school level throughout the 1950s, including a stop at Dubuque (Iowa) Senior High School from 1951-59.

His first move into collegiate coaching was as an assistant at Wisconsin for four seasons. Orr became a collegiate head coach in 1963, when he was handed the reins at Massachusetts for three seasons.

After UMass, Orr assisted Dave Strack at Michigan for one season before taking over head coaching duties at Michigan prior to the 1968-69 season.

Orr led the Wolverines to four NCAA Championship appearances in 12 seasons, amassing a school-record 209 victories. He is one of the few coaches to be the all-time leader in career wins at two high-major schools.

Orr’s Michigan squads finished second in the Big Ten Conference three times and captured the 1977 Big Ten title. In 1976, Michigan advanced to the NCAA Championship title game, falling to Indiana in the national final. He was named National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) National Coach of the Year in 1976 and was Big Ten Coach of the Year twice (1974, 1977).

Throughout his 29-year head coaching career, Orr tutored 18 players who were drafted by the NBA.

Of the five Michigan Wolverines with retired jerseys, two—center Phil Hubbard (#35) and forward Rudy Tomjanovich (#45)—played under Orr. RIP to one of the all-time greats.