If he coaches at least two more years, maybe no one

	Duke's Mike Krzyzewski (right) has the best shot of any active coach to pass Knight, his mentor. AP
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First, a few words about Bob Knight.

I can't say I know Knight well -- actually, I can't say I know him at all -- but I have been vocal in criticizing his antics. I came down hard on Knight after last month's love tap incident with Texas Tech forward Michael Prince, which I still believe was irresponsibly swept under the rug by Tech AD Gerald Myers.

But give the man his due. He has officially etched his name in the college basketball history books as arguably the most brilliant coach ever. Nobody can ever question his ability to teach the game. I also freely acknowledge that Knight deserves to be recognized for having passed Dean Smith without even a whiff of impropriety with respect to NCAA rules. Too often people have used that fact as a means to excuse Knight's more unpalatable behavior, but the sad truth is, lots of coaches have cheated. The reason they did is so they could win games.

Well, nobody has won more games than Knight, and he didn't have to cheat to do it. Of course, Smith won all those games without cheating or throwing chairs, but that's a column for another day.

That said, let's turn the page and ask an obvious question: Who's got next? The answer could well be: Nobody.

Even though Knight is 66 years old, he does not look like he is about to retire anytime soon. My best guess is that he will coach two more years beyond this season. The only reason I'm limiting him to two is that his son, Pat, has already been named his successor at Texas Tech and it's hard to imagine Knight making his son wait five years to take over. Still, it's not out of the question that Knight could be coaching past his 70th birthday. If he does, he would most assuredly put the all-time wins record out of reach for the foreseeable future.

Sticking with my two-more-years theory, let's do some math. During his five years in Lubbock, Knight has averaged 21 wins per year. At that rate, he will have 932 wins at the end of the 2008-09 season.

Now scan the list of career wins amongst active coaches. What you'll find is quite interesting. While there are four members in the 700 club (Lute Olson, Mike Krzyzewski, Jim Calhoun and Jim Boeheim) and 10 members in the 500 club, there are no active coaches in the 600 club. Thus, if one of the four with 700-plus victories doesn't eclipse Knight's record soon, the next wave is so far behind they might never catch up.

Why is the 600 cupboard bare? The most obvious reason is that it's very hard to win a lot of games over a long period of time. More significantly, it has become increasingly rare for coaches to land their first job at the age of 25, which is how old Knight was when Army hired him in 1965. Right now, there is only one coach Division I who is under the age of 30 -- Dane Fife, Knight's former player at Indiana who was hired in March of 2005 at IPFW at 25. Fife, incidentally, has 14 wins under his belt so far. Just 918 to go, kid.

For another point of reference, consider that Roy Williams got his first head coaching job at the age of 38. Williams has the second-highest win percentage among active coaches (behind Gonzaga's Mark Few), yet he is 56 years old and just won his 500th game on Dec. 9. He'll be lucky to get to 700, much less 900.

Conventional wisdom holds that Krzyzewski is the man who has the best chance to pass Knight in the short term. Coach K is just 59 years old and has 764 career wins, 116 behind Knight. If Krzyzewski wins an average of 25 games per year, he will still have to coach another six seasons after this one to reach 932. When you add the double duty Krzyzewski is pulling with USA Basketball these days, that seems a long ways away.

As for the other 700 guys, Olson has five more wins than Krzyzewski, but he is 72. Calhoun (743 wins) and Boeheim (736) are 64 and 62, respectively. If Coach K can't get there, it's doubtful any of those three will.

Beyond that, who? Of the eight men who have between 500 and 600 wins in Division I, the youngest are Kansas State's Bob Huggins (567) and California's Ben Braun (530), who are both 53. At the generously approximated rate of 25 wins per year, Huggins, who almost died of a heart attack four years ago, would have to coach until he's 68 to break the record. Braun would have to make it to 69.

As you continue to scroll down the list of active coaches, you find that many who appear to be within striking distance of striking distance are a little too old and far behind -- guys like Kelvin Sampson (464 wins, 51 years old), Rick Barnes (401 wins, 52 years old) and Tubby Smith (374 wins, 55 years old). Rick Pitino, who got his first head coaching job at Boston University when he was 24, might have had a shot at the record if he hadn't spent eight years in the NBA (including two as an assistant with the Knicks). As it stands, Pitino, who is 54, has 477 wins.

Thus, in order to find who's really got next, you have to go all the way down to the 200 club, where you find the likes of Bill Self (289 wins, 44 years old), Billy Donovan (271 wins, 41 years old), Herb Sendek (260 wins, 43 years old), Mark Gottfried (241 wins, 42 years old) and Steve Alford (220 wins in Division I, 42 years old). As I mentioned earlier, Few leads all active coaches in winning percentage (.821), but having landed his first head coaching job at the age of 36, he has just 197 wins and is already 43. Thad Matta, meanwhile, is only 39 and he has 158 wins.

Of the names listed above, Donovan has the best combination of early start (29), number of wins and current age. If he averages 25 games a year, and if he coaches in college 26 more years, and if Knight only coaches two more years, then Donovan will pass 932 in 2033, when he is 67 years old.

That's a lot of ifs. Still, we know that all records are destined to be broken. It is possible that Krzyzewski will break this one in the next decade. If he doesn't do it, I suppose someone else will. I just hope I'm still alive to see it.