Here Are the Top 10 College Basketball Coaches With the Most Career Wins

College basketball is home to some of the greatest, longest tenured coaches in all of sports. Tenure is something that coaches earn through on-court success, and with coaching tenure comes program stability.
Duke men’s basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski has held the Blue Devils’ job since the 1980–81 season. He is the only coach that the NCAA recognizes (we’ll explain that statement later) as a member of the 1,000-win club.
Coach K has held the all-time wins record for a men’s college basketball coach since 2011, but the major milestone he reached in 2015 (1,000 wins) made us wonder about what other men’s college basketball coaches have the most wins of all time. Here’s a look at the 10 winningest coaches in college basketball history.
10. Lute Olson

- Career Wins: 776
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 1
- Final Fours: 5
Lute Olson is responsible for putting the Arizona Wildcats on the college basketball map. After stints with Long Beach State (one season) and Iowa (nine seasons), he took over at Arizona and went on to spend the final 24 years of his illustrious coaching career leading the Wildcats. In 2002, Olson was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame; in 2006, he was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
9. Lefty Driesell

- Career Wins: 786
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 0
- Final Fours: 0
Lefty Driesell never guided any of his teams to a national title or Final Four appearance, but he is still one of the winningest coaches in college basketball history. He had stints at Davidson (nine seasons), Maryland (17 seasons), James Madison (nine seasons), and Georgia State (six seasons). Driesell is the man responsible for starting the “Midnight Madness” craze (at Maryland). He joined the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.
8. Eddie Sutton

- Career Wins: 806
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 0
- Final Fours: 3
Eddie Sutton has held some of the most prestigious jobs in the country and he’s also a bona fide college basketball legend. He started his career at Creighton and then had stops at Arkansas and Kentucky before landing the job that he is most well known for — Oklahoma State. In 2007, he took the interim head-coaching job at the University of San Francisco for the sole purpose of getting his 800th career win.
In total, Sutton took his teams to three Final Fours (one with Arkansas and two with Oklahoma State), won two AP Coach of the Year awards, and was inducted into the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2011.
7. Roy Williams

- Career Wins: 810
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 2
- Final Fours: 8
Roy Williams has amassed over 800 career wins (and he’s still going strong) while holding only two jobs over the course of his outstanding coaching career. He began his career in 1988 at Kansas, where he went on to win a total of 418 games and make four Final Four appearances.
Williams landed his “dream job” at North Carolina in 2003, and has since guided the Tar Heels to 392 wins, four Final Four appearances, and two national championships. Despite his career being far from over, Williams joined the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006 and the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007.
6. Adolph Rupp
- Career Wins: 876
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 4
- Final Fours: 6
Adolph Rupp spent his entire 41-year college basketball head-coaching career at the University of Kentucky. During that time he turned the Wildcats into one of the premier programs in the country, and established himself as a college basketball legend. On top of his 876 career wins, Rupp won four national titles; made six Final Four appearances; coached 44 NBA Draft picks; and won five national Coach of the Year awards.
5. Jim Calhoun

- Career Wins: 877
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 3
- Final Fours: 4
Jim Calhoun retired as the head coach of the University of Connecticut men’s basketball program following the 2011–12 season. He spent the first 14 years of his career at Northeastern, followed by 26 years at UConn. At UConn, he won three national titles, and at the time of his retirement, he was one win ahead of the great Adolph Rupp on the all-time coaching wins list.
4. Dean Smith

- Career Wins: 879
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 2
- Final Fours: 11
Dean Smith spent his entire 36-year head coaching career at the University of North Carolina. During that span he won 17 regular-season conference titles, 13 conference tournaments, and two national titles. At the time of Smith’s retirement, he held the record for the most wins in a college basketball coaching career. After his death in 2015, Smith’s estate delivered $200 to each of his former lettermen so they could enjoy a “dinner out.”
3. Bob Knight

- Career Wins: 899
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 3
- Final Fours: 5
Bob Knight, who became well-known for losing his cool at times, won 102 games as the head coach of Army, 659 games as the head coach at Indiana, and 138 games as the head coach at Texas Tech. He won all three of his national championships at Indiana. At the time of his retirement, Knight held the record for the most wins in a college basketball coaching career.
2. Jim Boeheim

- Career Wins: 1,003*
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 1
- Final Fours: 5
This one comes with a major caveat. Jim Boeheim has held the Syracuse job since the 1976–77 season. Over the course of that time he coached the Orange to 1,003 total wins. However, thanks to an investigation into the Syracuse athletic department, 101 of Boeheim’s wins were vacated due to the use of ineligible players. Even with the vacated wins, though, Boeheim still ranks second on this list.
In total Boeheim coached his teams to five Final Four appearances and one national title. He joined the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2005 and the College Basketball Hall of Fame in 2006. Boeheim originally planned on retiring in 2018, but recently said that the 2016–17 season could be his last.
*101 of Boeheim’s wins are not recognized by the NCAA.
1. Mike Krzyzewski

- Career Wins: 1,070
- NCAA Tournament Titles: 5
- Final Fours: 12
Coach Mike Krzyzewski spent five years as the head coach at Army before taking the job at Duke. All he has done in his time at Duke is win five national titles, make 12 Final Fours, win 12 regular-season conference titles, and 14 conference tournament titles. The only active coach within striking distance of Coach K on the all-time wins list is Jim Boeheim of Syracuse, and he is a long shot at best (thanks to his vacated wins).
Coach K will likely put this record out of reach, as his program shows no signs of slowing down.
Statistics courtesy of Sports-Reference.