New data from Betway shows fan sentiment towards each team’s coach…
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There has been debate in recent times over which teams qualify as ‘Blue Bloods’ in the current college basketball landscape.
Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, UCLA, UNC, and Indiana are generally included when listing Blue Bloods, but Michigan, UConn and Vilanova have also worked their way into the conversation as ‘New Bloods’.
Interestingly, new data from Betway shows that one of those ‘New Bloods’ are feeling the happiest of any team about their coach ahead of the 2025 edition of March Madness.
Social sentiment research from February 2025 shows that Michigan State Spartans coach Tim Izzo has a very favourable approval score of 34%, making him the best received coach of any Blue Bloods outfit ahead of March Madness.
That’s a whole 10% higher than the next best coach, Mark Pope, who oversees the Kentucky Wildcats. 20% of online comments about Pope were favourable, with the vast majority considered as ‘neutral’.
Another ‘New Blood’ coach, Dan Hurley, ranked in third place with 19%. Hurley is the coach for the UConn Huskies who, at the time of writing, are fourth in ‘Big East’.
Have a look at the full table below to see how other coaches ranked:
|
TEAM |
COACH |
APPROVAL SCORE |
|
Michigan State Spartans |
Tom Izzo |
34% |
|
Kentucky Wildcats |
Mark Pope |
20% |
|
UConn Huskies |
Dan Hurley |
19% |
|
UCLA Bruins |
Mick Cronin |
18% |
|
Vilanova Wildcats |
Kyle Neptune |
16% |
|
Duke Blue Devils |
John Scheyer |
11% |
|
Indiana Hoosiers |
Mike Woodson |
10% |
|
North Carolina Tar Heels |
Hubert Davis |
10% |
|
Kansas Jayhawks |
Bill Self |
8% |
When it comes to Women’s College Basketball, meanwhile, the New York Post considers Tennessee, Connecticut , Notre Dame and Stanford as the ‘Blue Bloods’.
|
TEAM |
COACH |
APPROVAL SCORE |
|
Tennessee Lady Volunteers |
Kim Caldwell |
32% |
|
UConn Huskies |
Geno Auriemma |
14% |
|
Notre Dame Fighting Irish |
Niele Ivy |
8% |
|
Stanford Cardinal |
Kate Paye |
7% |
Tennessee’s Kim Caldwell emerges as the most well received coach on that particular list with a glowing score of 32%.
The UConn Huskies success under Geno Auriemma is also recognised, however, with 14% of social media posts proving complimentary towards the 70-year-old coach.
Previous Winners
In the men’s championship, Dan Hurley, who has an approval rating of 19%, led the Huskies to the last two NCAA titles. Bill Self, the coach of the Kansas Jayhawks, was victorious in the 2022 season and now has a score of 8%.
In the women’s competition, Stanford’s last triumph was in 2021 under the now departed Tara VanDerveer, while Notre Dame’s last championship was in 2018 when Muffet McGraw was still in charge.
The UConn huskies do, however, still have the same coach in place as they did when they won four-in-a-row between 2013 and 2017. That coach is, of course, the legendary Geno Auriemma who today has an approval score of 14%.
METHODOLOGY
The coaches of each team were selected using the social media sentiment tracking technology ‘Brandwatch’. This allowed Betway to find the percentage of positive online comments made about each coach from the end of January 2025 to the end of February 2025. The majority of these social media posts were labelled as ‘neutral’.