Wisconsin’s win in the WCHA championship game Saturday not only put the Badgers into the NCAA tournament, it made one short list even shorter.
Badgers coach Mike Eaves won the national championship in 2006, but until last weekend he didn’t have a conference title on his coaching resume.
The only other name on the list of national championship-winning coaches without a league title was Amo Bessone, who led Michigan State to the 1966 NCAA crown but never took the Spartans or Michigan Tech to the top of their league.
(Well, unless you count Big Ten championships that Michigan State has from 1958-59, 1966-67, 1970-71, 1972-73 and 1975-76, but those were determined by the results of regular season games played between league schools while they were members of other conferences.)
Turning to this year’s NCAA tournament, there are 11 coaches looking for a first national championship, but only Minnesota State’s Mike Hastings (the only first-year college head coach in the field) doesn’t have a conference title on his resume.
COACHES LOOKING FOR FIRST NCAA TITLE IN 2013
Keith Allain, Yale
Norm Bazin, Massachusetts-Lowell
Rick Bennett, Union
Rico Blasi, Miami
Dave Burkholder, Niagara
Dave Hakstol, North Dakota
Mike Hastings, Minnesota State
Bob Motzko, St. Cloud State
Rand Pecknold, Quinnipiac
Dave Smith, Canisius
Dick Umile, New Hampshire
The other five coaches in the tournament have combined for 12 of the 65 national championships that have been awarded.
Boston College’s Jerry York has five (1984 with Bowling Green; 2001, 2008, 2010 and 2012 with BC); Denver’s George Gwozdecky (2004, 2005), Notre Dame’s Jeff Jackson (1992 and 1994 with Lake Superior State) and Minnesota’s Don Lucia (2002, 2003) each have two; and Wisconsin’s Eaves has one (2006).
