Barbara Stevens turned 64 in September. She is six months younger than Geno. She has been coaching at the college/university level for 41 years. She is just 15 wins behind Geno. Geno has been coaching for 33 years,
For the past 32 years Stevens has coached at Bentley University, a Division II school in Waltham, a very nice suburb of Boston. It appears Bentley supports athletics very well, In fact their hockey team plays at DI level. Her record at Bentley has been very good - only one losing season in all 32 years.
Previous to Bentley she did coach at the DI level for three years, at UMass. During those three years her record was 34 wins and 49 loses - NOT very good, In her third year at UMass(her tenth year as a head coach) Barbara played the UConn team whom they had beaten the previous year) now led by a brand new head coach named Auriemma. Geno was coaching in just his seventh game, and we’ve all heard about the conditions he was coaching under. I will leave it to you to guess who won.
In her first six years Stevens was head coach at Clark University, a DIII level school. She did very well at Clark, amassing 123 of her wins there. Did I mention Clark is Division THREE?
As I said above, Stevens is doing a great job at Bentley. We will never know what happened at UMass. Some of it had to have been the pressures of recruiting and scholarships, travel, etc. Clearly, there is a huge difference between DI sports and DII and DIII.
I am not writing this to suggest Stevens be taken off the list. I wouldn’t deign to have the pull or power to suggest such a thing. And furthermore, I think she should be there. She deserves acclimation. And this board, more than any group except for some of the sports media, is made up of people who can provide observation, measurement and acclimation to those in the basketball world who are deserving.
I just wanted to point out that I think the list is appropriate; but, like many similar lists, it contains both Apples and Oranges (and maybe even a Kumquat or two).