Wooden's the Greatest... who's the worst?

As a follow-up to the 50 Greatest Coaches list published this week, The Sporting News' team of bloggers put together some nominees for a companion list of the worst coaches ever.

As with the "50 Greatest" list, college basketball is well-represented. Some of the names (dis)honored:

• Isiah Thomas: destroyed the Knicks and the CBA, now trying to resurrect his career as coach at Florida International
• Brian Ellerbe: The Michigan coach responsible for recruiting Mo Taylor, "Tractor" Traylor and others who ultimately landed the Wolverines in NCAA sanction-land and kicked off a ten-year March Madness drought
• Bob Hill: A vagabond of an NBA coach who redefined "mailing it in" during his mercifully short run at Fordham
• P.J. Carlesimo: Actually a very successful coach at Seton Hall, but he'll always be remembered for the Latrell Sprewell incident.
• Tim Floyd: Floyd was a disaster at the NBA level -- and dirty as coach of USC.

Those are some very impressive nominees. I'd add:

• Mike Jarvis: Took St. John's from the Elite Eight to the Big East basement.
• Larry Eustachy: A mostly successful run at Iowa State ended with an ill-advised trip to a frat party.
• Jim Harrick: Won a title at UCLA... then got fired for lying on expense reports. Then got a second chance at Georgia... and was kicked to the curb for generally crooked behavior relating to academics.

And any "worst ever" list has to include Dave Bliss.

Bliss was the coach at Baylor when a Bear player, Patrick Dennehy, was murdered by an ex-Baylor player named Carlton Dotson. As part of the ensuing investigation, we learned that Bliss had improperly covered Dennehy's tuition -- to the tune of about $40,000 -- and that, in an attempt to cover his tracks, he suggested that Dennehy had raised his tuition money by dealing drugs.

Nice, huh?

Who's your pick for worst college basketball coach ever? Post your nominees in the forum.