Senior Columnist

The transition from college into the real world is daunting and unsure. I would know. I’m a senior.

For college coaches looking to make a name for themselves in the NBA, this future is twice as daunting.

Every time a team sacks their head coach, the obvious names show up on every expert’s radar: Calipari, Krzyzewski and maybe Izzo is Sparty’s having a good year, and every year they do what’s best. They stay put.

The college game is so different from the NBA, it’s almost like playing in two different sports. Besides the pace of the game, the level of competition is sometimes too much for even the players. We call them busts.

Such busts exist in the realm of coaching as well. The most famous examples being Louisville’s Rick Pitino and Kentucky’s John Calipari. Yes, these two household names, juggernauts of the college basketball world once served as the NBA’s whipping boys in the late 1990s, at the helms of the Celtics and Nets, respectively.

Mike Krzyzewski hasn’t moved from the college game. Why? Because he’s got it figured out. It’s not because he coaches college because of the integrity or purity of the college game. That’s just some NCAA crap he’s probably told to say to keep them from paying players.

It’s because he’s never going to fail. In college basketball, once you’re established, you’re in. Duke, Kentucky and other powerhouses like Michigan State and Louisville will always be good. The nature of the college game allows that to be so.

A five-star recruit is going to choose a well-known winner over some mediocre school in a mid-major conference with absolutely no chance of getting anywhere.

It’s a lot like real life. The rich kids get to eat filet mignon because a hundred years ago, their ancestors did some shady business deal with the government to avoid anti-trust legislation so they could keep making fat stacks of unethical cash and found the republican party. Meanwhile, the proletariat are left to fight over the scraps.

It’s privilege. There’s no doubt that Coach K works hard, but if he wanted to, I’m sure he could put the program into auto-pilot and still win 25 games a year. It’s not hard to recruit when you’re one of the best basketball schools in the world, and it’s not hard to win when every team you get is highly-sought-after high school kids.

Florida coach Billy Donovan just got hired by the Oklahoma City Thunder, and I wish him the best of luck. But just a reminder, those two national championship rings and four Final Four appearances don’t look so good against that .383 win percentage among college coaches who’ve made the same career choice.

I still have hope for you, Brad Stevens. You can do it. I know you can.