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NCAA basketball: Ranking the 25 best college basketball coaches ever

By Nate Williamson

Mike Krzyzewski, Duke Blue Devils, Roy Williams, North Carolina Tar Heels. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images)
Mike Krzyzewski, Duke Blue Devils, Roy Williams, North Carolina Tar Heels. (Photo by Streeter Lecka/Getty Images) /
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Best college basketball coaches ever
(Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

No. 16: Clair Bee

Over the long journey of college basketball history, some of the game’s best offenses have had their fast-paced, high-tempo offenses completely dismantled by the tenacious, hard-pressing defensive focus of the 1-3-1 zone. Some of the game’s most successful coaches have run the defensive pressure up on their opponent thanks to this.

None of that would have been possible without the legendary Clair Bee.

Bee set a career winning percentage record at his winning clip of .824 in a 21-year run at Rider and Long Island. Though far from the most prestigious schools, Bee led them to a ridiculous amount of success, leading Long Island to 43 consecutive wins and a pair of NIT titles back in 1939 and 1941 (The NIT was the far more prestigious title back then, in the infancy of the NCAA tournament).

Bee, who was a three-sport collegiate athlete himself, won 95 percent of his games coached from 1931 to 1951 and was a quickly inducted member of the Hall of Fame back in 1968. Bee’s dominance ended at the collegiate level, though as his stint in the NBA with the Baltimore Bullets ended at 34-116, hence the drops quite a bit down the list.

Still, though, Bee was an absolute innovator of the college basketball game and with two titles to his name, and the Clair Bee Coach of the Year Award in his name, he’s a surefire lock on this list.