ESPN Men's Basketball

ESPN analyst Fran Fraschilla explains why Rick Barnes of Texas is his current pick for national coach of the year.

San Diego State returned nearly everyone and was supposed to be good, but did anyone think the Aztecs would be this good?

This was a fringe top-25 team at the start of the season, unranked in the first ESPN/USA Today coaches poll. Now SDSU is 21-1, ranked sixth nationally and is very much in the Final Four conversation.

Much of this is due to the work of 65-year-old coach Steve Fisher, who more than two decades after winning a national title at Michigan is creating plenty of buzz for a program that isn’t used to reaching such great heights. This is, after all, a school still in search for its first NCAA tournament win.

The Aztecs, who returned all five starters off a tournament team that narrowly lost to Tennessee in the NCAA first round, didn’t let the expectations of Mountain West favorite get to them. And there were plenty of opportunities to lose focus during this team’s 20-game winning streak to open the season, which began with five straight games away from home. Oh, and how did the Aztecs respond to losing for the first time? Three days after the BYU game, they crushed Wyoming by 39.

After his team made an early statement with a win at Gonzaga, Fisher taught this team how to handle success, asking that his players enjoy it while realizing there’s more work to be done.

San Diego State has gotten better, too. Kawhi Leonard is averaging a double-double while improving his midrange game along with his NBA draft stock. Malcolm Thomas continues to play well in the frontcourt while point guard D.J. Gay has steadied the team. Fisher brought in 3-point shooting specialist James Rahon, and the transfer has been deadly from beyond the arc.

The way this team has performed has meant once-unthinkable sellout crowds for Viejas Arena and equally unthinkable and unprecedented national publicity for this once-sleepy program.

Well, the Aztecs aren’t sleeping anymore.

And a great deal of that credit goes to Fisher.

Jim Calhoun’s October was dominated by two humbling experiences.

He had to spend the first day of practice in front of the NCAA’s committee on infractions committee defending his Connecticut program and his accountability of an atmosphere of compliance.

And then, just a few days later, he found himself in New York answering questions about his Huskies being picked as the 10th-best team in the Big East during conference media days. At the time, UConn was the trendy pick to lose in the first round of the Maui Invitational to Wichita State. And no one would’ve considered it much of an upset.

Instead, the Huskies, on the back of Kemba Walker, beat Wichita State, Michigan State and Kentucky and brought a trophy home from Hawaii. Throughout the month of December, Connecticut didn’t let down its guard with any “bad” losses. There was a one-week stretch in which the Huskies lost at Notre Dame and at Pitt and struggled at home versus South Florida, but that was immediately followed up with a thrilling OT victory on the road against a Texas team that is now arguably the hottest in the country. A nonconference win over Tennessee came shortly thereafter.

So as of now, a UConn team with absolutely zero expectations is 17-3, ranked seventh nationally in the coaches poll and sixth in the RPI. The Huskies seemed to be destined for a 2- or 3-seed in the NCAA tournament. Not too shabby for the so-called 10th-best team in the Big East.

The 68-year-old Calhoun is member of the Basketball Hall of Fame and a two-time national champion. But it’s been years since he had to deal with such low expectations in Storrs. He had health issues last season yet still signed a four-year contract extension after his contract expired. He made some smart, tactical coaching moves by adding former extremely popular Huskies player Kevin Ollie, as well as former head coach Glenn Miller, to his bench.

He’s also made sure the Huskies don’t simply rely on the great Walker to win every game. The much-maligned freshmen class has matured under Calhoun’s watch with Jeremy Lamb and Shabazz Napier complementing UConn’s All-American well. Also, Charles Okwandu is at last a contributing member of the team in his final season.

Simply put, it’s been one of the finest coaching jobs in Calhoun’s storied career.

The Huskies have gone from an NIT team that returned the absolute fewest minutes of any Big East squad to legit Final Four contender. From unranked and out-of-sight to top-10 ranking and legit Final Four contender.

Sounds like a national coach of the year finalist to me.

It was about this time last year that Texas took its first step on what became a precipitous slide down the rankings. By season’s end, most everyone was questioning what happened to the Longhorns. How could a team with so much talent fizzle so fast?

Well, people are talking Texas again but now folks are wondering how high the Horns can climb. This time around, UT is going the right way on the poll highway, 25th in the preseason and now No. 3 in February.

Texas has loss just once in its last 14 games and that was by one point in overtime against Connecticut.

The Longhorns have also done what no one can seem to do this season -- win on the road. Texas has beaten three top-25 teams in fiercely hostile environments -- at Michigan State, at Kansas and at Texas A&M -- and are arguably playing the best basketball of any team in the country right now, including unbeaten Ohio State.

Rick Barnes has done a masterful job of retooling and redirecting a team that clearly finished last season like a rudderless ship. But with the Longhorns being the Longhorns, a byproduct of the mightiest athletic department in the country, few are going to offer many violins or hosannas for Barnes.

Rebuilding at Texas? Right, that’s hard.

But getting a team that was such a trainwreck at season’s end back on track is no easy feat regardless of where you are.

Yet Barnes has managed to get Jordan Hamilton to play within the offense without losing his offensive prowess and has fearlessly relied on two freshmen, Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson, and reaped the rewards for his trust. Joseph is averaging 11.2 points and Thompson 12.8.

Most of all, Barnes has convinced his team to buy into its defense. A big part of that is Thompson. He owns his space with such authority that he turned Marcus and Markieff Morris into jump shooters in the Horns’ victory at Kansas, which ended the Jayhawks’ 69-game home win streak.

When things started to unravel last season for Texas, the defense was the first to go. In their first 16 games, up until they earned the No. 1 ranking, they allowed just 63 points per game. In their final 19, when things spun out of control, they gave up an average of 74.7.

This season the Longhorns are getting better, not worse, as the season progresses. Solid defensively all season, the real UT lockdown has been on since the Big 12 season began. Texas is holding league opponents to only 53.4 points per game, and that’s including Kansas and Missouri.

Despite all of its athletic success, Texas has been to the Final Four only three times in its history -- the most recent under Barnes’ tutelage in 2003.

All signs pointed to a return last season until the Longhorns ran into a self-inflicted detour.

This time, the path looks a lot surer.

And for that, the oft-maligned Barnes is worthy of praise.

For more on Steve Fisher, Rick Barnes and Jim Calhoun, check out the rest of our Coach of the Year debate in the Nation blog. For now, here are 10 other coaches who deserve praise for a job well-done this season:

Rick Pitino, Louisville: This was supposed to be a gap year for the Cardinals and gap years aren’t traditionally pretty in the Big East. Instead, Louisville -- picked to finish eighth in the league -- is tied with equally surprising Notre Dame (see below) for second. Pitino has reinvigorated his team by going back to his roots, playing a more uptempo offense and solid defense. His buddy and associate head coach Ralph Willard has said this is Pitino’s best coaching job. Hard to disagree.

Chris Mack, Xavier: His best shooter, Brad Redford, blew out his ACL in October. His top reserve, Jay Canty, hurt his knee at the end of December. His best recruit, Justin Martin, was ruled academically ineligible. So what does Mack do with nine scholarship players? The same thing Xavier always does… win. The Musketeers are 7-0 and tied atop the Atlantic 10 standings. They ditched preseason favorite Temple and just roasted Richmond on the road. The beat goes on.

Dave Rose, BYU: Yes he has The Jimmer, but Fredette isn’t the only reason BYU is rolling. Lost in the Fredette Frenzy is the fact that the Cougars are solid defensively, have surrounded their superstar with great talent, are playing unselfish basketball and have hit the boards hard. That’s coaching. Mix in the fact that Rose is the guy managing The Jimmer mania, helping to keep his player and his team from soaring too high in the crowd, and you’ve got a maestro coaching performance to go with a maestro player.

Thad Matta, Ohio State: OK, some might argue: How hard it is to coach a team loaded with so much talent? Well remember, the Buckeyes lost a lot of talent too, in the form of national player of the year Evan Turner. Yet Matta has Ohio State atop the rankings as the nation’s only unbeaten team, exploiting opponents with its balanced offensive attack and solid defense. Is there plenty of talent on hand? Sure. But give credit where credit is due.

Randy Bennett, Saint Mary’s: A season after Saint Mary’s surprising Sweet 16 run and after losing Omar Samhan to graduation, Bennett has the Gaels right back in the thick of things. Saint Mary’s won the first showdown with rival Gonzaga on the road -- its first victory in Spokane since 1995 -- and is in position to score an at-large bid even without a conference tourney title.

Matt Painter, Purdue: For a team that had such high expectations in the preseason, the heartbreaking, season-ending ACL injury to Robbie Hummel on the first full day of practice was absolutely devastating. Many counted out Purdue right then and there. And while it’s true the Boilermakers can’t be considered a true national-title contender at the moment, it’s also true that they’ve hung in there quite fine, thank you. With Painter steadying the ship, Purdue is in second place in the Big Ten and 18-5 overall.

Ron Everhart, Duquesne: Threatening for years in the Atlantic 10, Duquesne appears to have finally arrived. Seasoned by a tough nonleague schedule (aside from a loss to Robert Morris, none of the Dukes’ defeats are bad ones), Duquesne is rolling through the A-10 at 7-0. Standout players Bill Clark and Damian Saunders have been joined by the missing piece to Everhart’s puzzle, a savvy, scoring point guard in the form of freshman T.J. McConnell. The unselfish Dukes lead the nation in assists, averaging 19.2 per game.

Mark Turgeon, Texas A&M: Like his team, Turgeon constantly flies under the radar. Texas A&M isn’t flashy, doesn’t have a turn-the-head superstar and their coach isn’t going out and stumping for attention. It’s possible you haven’t heard of any of their players, but the Aggies are as reliable as an old slipper. They will play lockdown defense, will be in the top 25 and will be in the NCAA tournament.

Mike Brey, Notre Dame: All Brey has done this season is reinvent how Notre Dame plays. Successfully. Reliant on Luke Harangody for four years, the Irish now have gone to the perimeter, relying on the hot-shooting of Ben Hansbrough and Tim Abromaitis to lead them to a surprising 17-4 start. Brey may have found a secret to his team’s success at the end of last season when he was forced to slow things down while Harangody was injured. This team is now comfortable going up and down the court (80-75 win against Marquette) or forcing the tempo toward a snail’s pace (56-51 win at Pittsburgh).

Cliff Ellis, Coastal Carolina: Looking for a mid-major to rally around for the NCAA tournament? Why not a Coastal Carolina team that hasn’t been to the Big Dance in 18 years. Last season, Ellis -- the former longtime coach at Auburn and Clemson -- took the Chanticleers to unprecedented heights, winning the Big South regular-season title and a school-record 28 games. What’s changed this year? Not much. Despite losing three seniors and despite having to dismiss star transfer Mike Holmes a month ago, the Chanticleers haven’t lost since Nov. 18, reeling off 18 consecutive victories to improve to 20-2.