John Chaney slipped away and closed a door behind him. It was 2000, and Temple had blown a late lead and lost to Seton Hall in overtime.
Temple was a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament, and Seton Hall was a No. 10. Chaney says now that the 2000 Owls were his most talented team. He says that year’s tournament was his best chance in his 25 years as Temple’s coach to reach the Final Four. Instead, Seton Hall surprised Temple in the second round.
It wasn’t going to happen for Chaney, and he knew it. He closed the door and cried.
“That was the most crushing deal that I can remember,” says the 76-year-old Chaney, who retired in 2006. “You can imagine the pit of my stomach dropping down to my shoes. That’s a horrible feeling.
“I sort of felt that I failed them in some ways, even when I look at it over and over.”
Chaney took Temple to the Elite Eight five times and won 23 NCAA Tournament games, the most without reaching the Final Four. Chaney is the patriarch of an exclusive but dubious club, one whose members have won the most tournament games without a Final Four appearance. The other members are former Purdue coach Gene Keady (19 wins) and former Drake and Iowa coach Tom Davis (18).
Another member will solidify his place in the club if his team does not advance past today’s Elite Eight game. Kansas coach Bill Self has won 19 times in the NCAA Tournament but has yet to take a team to basketball’s promised land.
Keady and Davis each say the emptiness they feel from not reaching a Final Four is intense, but they do not think it defines their careers. Chaney knows the feeling, and he plans to send Self a card if the KU coach falls short, in part to express sympathy — and also to welcome Self to the group.
But not Keady.
“I’m not going to welcome anybody to that club,” says Keady, now an analyst for the Big Ten Network. “I’m sorry you brought it up. That’s what I like about this TV gig: I don’t go home and beat myself up anymore.”
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It’s not that Keady hopes Self joins the club and, heck, surpasses Chaney. It’s not that he roots against Self. But Self is the coach at KU, and Keady is a Kansas State guy. The longer KU goes without reaching the Final Four, well, Keady won’t mind.
“You don’t hate them; you just don’t like the uniform,” says Keady, a native of Larned, Kan. “I’ve always had Kansas crammed down my throat.”
Keady says he thinks Self will reach the Final Four because he has time and prestige on his side. At 45 years old, Self would be far younger than the other club members, whose average age is 72.
Keady was 42 when he was hired at Western Kentucky, his first Division I job. Self, though, has been a Division I coach since he took over at Oral Roberts at age 30. He has since taken Tulsa, Illinois and KU to the Elite Eight. Today will be Self’s third Elite Eight appearance in five seasons with the Jayhawks. It is where the road ended for Self four previous times.
“He’ll get there if he stays at Kansas long enough,” Keady says.
Davis agrees, saying Self coaches at one of several schools — KU, North Carolina, Duke, UCLA and a handful of others — often favored to reach the Final Four. There is pressure for those schools’ coaches, but there also are advantages. Self coaches a team that attracts some of the top players each year.
But other schools, including the ones where Chaney, Keady and Davis coached, have lower expectations because they do not attract the same caliber of players.
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