By Mike Douchant

There's a tendency to overindulge at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Anyone digesting the following assortment of incisive facts on the 65 NCAA Division I Tournament coaches should find that variety is the spice of this occasionally irreverent smorgasbord. Remember: If a morsel isn't appetizing, don't be a glutton for punishment in trying to comprehend what makes the coaching community tick. Just proceed directly to the next tidbit. Sooner or later, there's bound to be a factoid that you can savor while enjoying this year's playoffs.

ALABAMA STATE: Rob Spivery coached his alma mater, Ashland (Ohio), for one season in 1995-96 after playing there in the early 1970s under eventual pro coach Bill Musselman. Spivery was also a player-coach for a professional team in Brazil in the mid-1970s.

ARIZONA: Lute Olson, born on a farm just outside Maryville, N.D., was a three-sport athlete (basketball, football and baseball) at Augsburg College (Minn.) in the mid-1950s.

ARKANSAS: Nolan Richardson had a brief tryout with the San Diego Chargers of the American Football League after his basketball career under Hall of Famer Don Haskins at Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso). Richardson led the Miners in scoring with 21 points per game as a sophomore in 1960-61 the season before Haskins arrived. His daughter-in-law, the former Kim Mayberry, is the sister of former All-SEC guard Lee Mayberry of the Razorbacks.

BOSTON COLLEGE: Al Skinner, the next to last pick in the ninth round of the 1974 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics, was selected immediately before Lamar coach Mike Deane, a guard from Potsdam (N.Y.) State (by the Milwaukee Bucks). Skinner was captain of the 1973-74 UMass squad that was led in assists by Rick Pitino.

BRIGHAM YOUNG: As surprising as it might seem, Steve Cleveland is the first head basketball or football coach at BYU to have served a mission. He went on an LDS mission to England from 1971-73 before graduating from UC Irvine in 1976.

BUTLER: Thad Matta, a transfer from Southern Illinois, led Butler in assists and three-point field-goal percentage in 1987-88 and in free-throw percentage in 1988-89. He was involved in postseason play in each of his six seasons as a full-time assistant coach from 1994-95 through 1999-2000 with Miami (Ohio), Western Carolina and Butler.

CALIFORNIA: Ben Braun played one year of basketball at Wisconsin-LaCrosse before transferring to Wisconsin-Madison, where he did not play varsity basketball. Braun taught English during his eight-year stint at Siena Heights College (Mich.).

CAL STATE NORTHRIDGE: Bobby Braswell coached NBA guards Lucious Harris and Byron Russell when he was an assistant at Long Beach State. Braswell joined Joe Harrington's staff directly from high school with Harris in 1989, which was one year after Tyrone Mitchell transferred from Arizona. Harris became the Big West Conference's all-time leading scorer and Mitchell led the 49ers in assists two seasons.

CHARLOTTE: Bobby Lutz became a scratch golfer and one of the state of North Carolina's most celebrated slow-pitch softball players after failing to make UNCC's 1977 NCAA Final Four roster as a walk-on.

CINCINNATI: In 1976-77, West Virginia forward Bob Huggins led the fledgling Eastern Collegiate Basketball League in free-throw shooting with a mark of 84.4 percent. Only three of his annual team leaders with the Bearcats since 1989-90 hit better than 80 percent of their foul shots--LaZelle Durden in 1994-95 (74-92, 80.4%), D'Juan Baker in 1997-98 (72-83, 86.7%) and Steve Logan in 1999-2000 (??.?%).

CREIGHTON: Dana Altman joined Eddie Hickey (1941-43) and Tony Barone (1989-91) as the only coaches in school history to participate in three consecutive national postseason tournaments.

DUKE: Mike Krzyzewski, who has three daughters, became a grandfather for the first time in mid-November 1999. He was an assistant with Dave Bliss, Bob Donewald and Bob Weltlich on Indiana coach Bob Knight's staff in 1974-75.

EASTERN ILLINOIS: Rick Samuels graduated from Chadron State, a school in Nebraska with an enrollment of fewer than 3,000 students, the same year (1971) as Loyola Marymount coach Steve Aggers.

FLORIDA: Billy Donovan, a third-round pick from Providence in the 1987 NBA draft by the Utah Jazz, was selected ahead of Yale center Chris Dudley. Donovan averaged 2.8 points per game his first two seasons with the Friars before averaging 18 ppg his last two campaigns. His high school coach (St. Agnes, N.Y.), Frank Morris, coached Gators starting guard Teddy Dupay in high school (Ft. Myers, Fla.). He was an assistant with Herb Sendek, Tubby Smith and Ralph Willard on Rick Pitino's coaching staff at Kentucky in 1989-90 after working with an investment banking firm on Wall Street. Donovan, who led the Big East Conference in steals in 1986-87 with 1.9 per game, is the son of William Donovan, Boston College's captain as a senior in 1961-62.

FRESNO STATE: Jerry Tarkanian lost his home debut as coach at UNLV (82-76 to Texas Tech in the 1973-74 season) after Tarkanian-coached teams never lost a home game in five years with Long Beach State or in six years in junior college. One of the players Tarkanian coached in junior college was future major league baseball slugger Darrell Evans.

GEORGE MASON: Jim Larranaga spent one season as player-coach for a professional team in Belgium.

GEORGETOWN: Craig Esherick, who played on John Thompson's first Hoyas team to reach the NCAA Tournament in 1975, is a member of the District of Columbia Bar after graduating from Georgetown University Law School in 1982.

GEORGIA: Jim Harrick got his start in college coaching by joining Dutch Belnap's staff at Utah State one year before two of high school players--Mike Santos and Oscar Williams--enrolled in 1974. Santos became a third-round draft choice of the Buffalo Braves in 1978 and Williams set several assists records for the Aggies.

GEORGIA STATE: Lefty Driesell coached Davidson when the Wildcats were the only school other than UCLA to have as many as three different players become an NCAA consensus first- or second-team All-American the last half of the 1960s. Driesell was scoreless for Duke on December 30, 1952, when the Blue Devils lost to Penn, 97-80, in the Dixie Classic at Raleigh as the Quakers' Ernie Beck scored a still existing school-record 47 points.

GEORGIA TECH: Paul Hewitt earned a bachelor of arts degree in journalism and economics.

GONZAGA: Mark Few is in his first season as a head coach at any level. He was an assistant for two different Oregon high schools before becoming an aide with the Zags under Dan Fitzgerald and Dan Monson.

HAMPTON: Steve Merfeld is one of the few white coaches ever to be in charge of a basketball program at a predominantly black college.

HAWAII: One of Riley Wallace's teammates at Centenary in the early 1960s was 6-6 Cecil Upshaw, who went on to lead the Atlanta Braves in saves five times, including a career-high 27 for the 1969 N.L. Western Division champions.

HOFSTRA: Jay Wright worked as an administrative assistant with the Philadelphia Stars football franchise, which captured the 1983 United States Football League championship.

HOLY CROSS: Ralph Willard's son, Kevin, played for his father at Western Kentucky and Pittsburgh. Kevin went on to become a coaching intern with the Boston Celtics under Rick Pitino, who was Kentucky's coach in 1989-90 when Ralph was an assistant there with Billy Donovan, Herb Sendek and Tubby Smith.

ILLINOIS: Bill Self served as an assistant on the Big Eight Conference coaching staffs of Larry Brown (Kansas) and Eddie Sutton (Oklahoma State). Self, an Oklahoma State alumnus, played in the Big Eight against Wichita State coach Mark Turgeon (Kansas) and top two NBA draft picks Steve Stipanovich (2nd selection overall in 1983/attended Missouri), Wayman Tisdale (2nd in 1985/Oklahoma) and Danny Manning (1st in 1988/Kansas).

INDIANA: Mike Davis played in Switzerland and Italy before spending two summers coaching the Venezuelan National Team. Davis, a second-round NBA draft choice by the Milwaukee Bucks in 1983 after leading Alabama in steals, was selected ahead of fellow guard Craig Ehlo (Washington State).

INDIANA STATE: Royce Waltman guided the Sycamores to their first winning record (16-11) in 18 years in his maiden season with them in 1997-98.

IONA: Jeff Ruland's coaches at Iona when he led the Gaels in scoring and rebounding three consecutive seasons from 1977-78 through 1979-80 were head coach Jim Valvano, who eventually guided North Carolina State to the 1983 NCAA Tournament crown, and assistant Tom Abatemarco (former head coach at Drake, Lamar and Cal State Sacramento). Ruland and Iona snapped Louisville's school-record 18-game winning streak in 1980 before the Cardinals went on to capture the NCAA Tournament championship.

IOWA: Steve Alford amassed the fourth-best career free-throw percentage in Division I history (89.8 percent with Indiana from from 1983-84 through 1986-87). His father, Sam Alford, led the NAIA in free-throw shooting in 1963-64 with a mark of 91.2 percent for Franklin (Ind.).

IOWA STATE: Larry Eustachy was a junior college teammate of San Jose State coach Steve Barnes at Citrus (Calif.). Barnes was an assistant under Eustachy at three schools (Idaho, Utah State and Iowa State). Eustachy served with current Louisiana State coach John Brady as Mississippi State aides under Bob Boyd in the mid-1980s.

KANSAS: None of Roy Williams' teams with the Jayhawks averaged fewer than 80 points per game until the 1999-2000 season. His son, Scott, was a backup guard at his alma mater (North Carolina). The all-time winningest coach through 12 seasons could go winless in 2000-01 and still have more victories than any mentor through his first 13 years.

KENT: Gary Waters played for an international team in Spain in 1974.

KENTUCKY: Tubby Smith is the only coach to twice guide two different schools to the NCAA playoffs in back-to-back seasons--Tulsa (1995/2-1) and Georgia (1996/2-1) before Georgia (1997/0-1) and Kentucky (1998/6-0). He was an assistant with Billy Donovan, Herb Sendek and Ralph Willard on Rick Pitino's coaching staff at UK in 1989-90.

MARYLAND: Gary Williams is the first man to be a head coach in the Big East, Big Ten and ACC. He toiled at Boston College and Ohio State before accepting his present position at his alma mater. Williams was a sophomore in 1966 when he "had to sneak in the back door (of Cole Field House on the Terrapins' campus) because I did not have a ticket (to the NCAA Tournament final between Kentucky and Texas Western), but I managed to get in and was able to find a seat."

MICHIGAN STATE: Tom Izzo was a teammate in high school (Iron Mountain, Mich.) and college (Northern Michigan) of San Francisco 49ers coach Steve Mariucci. Izzo, a running back, and Mariucci, a quarterback, were the best men in each others' weddings.

MISSISSIPPI: Rod Barnes became the first player in Ole Miss history to compile 500 points, 100 rebounds and 100 assists in a single season (1987-88 as a senior).

MISSOURI: Quin Snyder was the first player from the state of Washington to be named to the McDonald's High School All-America Team before he enrolled at Duke. He was Larry Brown's son-in-law when they both toiled for the NBA's Los Angeles Clippers. Snyder hired the first European coach to hold a full-time position with an NCAA Division I school (Igor Kokoskov from Yugoslavia).

MONMOUTH: Dave Calloway, who holds every school three-point shooting record, led the nation in three-point accuracy in 1988-89 as a sophomore (48 of 82 from beyond the arc, 58.5 percent).

NORTH CAROLINA: Matt Doherty's high school coach in Long Island was Davidson coach Bob McKillop. Doherty, who outscored Carolina teammate Michael Jordan, 16-11, when the NCAA champion-to-be Tar Heels topped Alabama, 74-69, in the 1982 East Regional semifinals, worked as a bond salesman on Wall Street for his first three years out of college.

UNC GREENSBORO: Fran McCaffery is believed to have been the youngest coach (28 years old) ever to take a team to the NCAA Tournament when he directed Lehigh to the 1988 playoffs. His wife, the former Margaret Nowlin, ranks among the top 10 scorers in Notre Dame history. She was the catalyst behind the first-ever NCAA women's appearance by the Irish in 1992 and was named MVP of the Midwestern Collegiate Conference Tournament that year. Margaret served as an assistant coach at her alma mater in 1996-97.

NORTHWESTERN STATE (LA.): Mike McConathy ranked among the nation's leading scorers with Louisiana Tech in 1975-76 (15th with 24.7 ppg) and 1976-77 (7th with 27.5 ppg). His father, Johnny, earned small-college All-American honors with the Demons in 1952 when he set a school single-season scoring record by averaging 21.6 points per game. Mike also has two uncles, George and Leslie, enshrined in the university's Graduate `N' Club Hall of Fame in recognition of their basketball exploits in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Mike was in the same graduating class at Tech with Kansas State coach Jim Wooldridge and college and NBA coach Tim Floyd, who played in only one varsity game for the Bulldogs. Mike coached Bossier Parish Community College (La.) for 16 seasons in the same gymnasium where he played in high school.

NOTRE DAME: Mike Brey, Danny Ferry's assistant coach at DeMatha High School in Hyattsville, Md., joined Mike Krzyzewski's staff two years after the national player-to-be enrolled at Duke in 1985.

OHIO STATE: Jim O'Brien, who still holds the Boston College single-game assists record with 18 against LeMoyne on December 16, 1970, led the Eagles in scoring as a junior and senior. Among his teammates in the ABA were Artis Gilmore and Dan Issel. Wilt Chamberlain was O'Brien's coach with the San Diego Conquistadors in 1973-74.

OKLAHOMA: Kelvin Sampson was a three-year baseball letterman at Pembroke (N.C.) State.

OKLAHOMA STATE: One of Eddie Sutton's teammates when he played for the Cowboys was Jerry Adair, who went on to become one of the best fielding second basemen in major league history.

PENN STATE: Jerry Dunn's identical twin brother, North Colorado graduate Terry, was an assistant for three Colorado universities in the 1990s (Air Force, Colorado State and Colorado). They played basketball together at Casper (Wyo.) Junior College in the mid-1970s.

PRINCETON: John Thompson III, whose father (Georgetown's John Thompson) and college coach (Princeton's Pete Carril) are both in the Hall of Fame, has a brother, Ronny, who is an assistant at Georgetown. John III ranked second for most assists in a career with 358 when he finished playing with the Tigers in 1987-88.

PROVIDENCE: Tim Welsh played college basketball under his father, Jerry, at Potsdam (N.Y.) State.

ST. JOSEPH'S: Phil Martelli, a graduate of Widener (Pa.), is just the third non-alumnus to be head coach of the Hawks. When Martelli was hired in 1995, he broke a string of seven consecutive coaches for the school that were SJU graduates.

SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: Henry Bibby was an All-American guard at UCLA the year before his brother, Jim, pitched a no-hitter for the Texas Rangers against the Oakland A's in 1973. Henry averaged an NBA career-high of 12.2 points per game with the Julius Erving-led Philadelphia 76ers in 1978-79 before Jim appeared in the World Series with the Pittsburgh Pirates later in the year. Jim, who also hurled for the St. Louis Cardinals and Cleveland Indians en route to a 111-101 record in a 12-year career from 1972 to 1984, led the National League in winning percentage in 1980 with a 19-6 record (.760).

SOUTHERN UTAH: Bill Evans began his coaching career at a high school in Louisiana (Port Sulphur) and subsequently served as an assistant at Alaska-Anchorage.

STANFORD: Mike Montgomery has six former assistants serving as Division I head coaches--Barry Collier (Nebraska), Trent Johnson (Nevada), Ernie Kent (Oregon), Stew Morrill (Utah State), Doug Oliver (Idaho State), Willis Wilson (Rice).

SYRACUSE: Jim Boeheim, an avid golfer, served as varsity golf coach for the Orange from 1967 until the program was disbanded in 1973. He was an assistant basketball coach under Roy Danforth during that period. Boeheim, a three-year teammate of Syracuse All-American Dave Bing in the mid-1960s, hasn't posted a losing league record in the rigorous Big East Conference since 1980-81.

TEMPLE: John Chaney was a member of the Harlem Globetrotters briefly in the mid-1950s before playing 10 seasons in the old Eastern League. He scored 57 points in a game against Knoxville during his career at Bethune-Cookman. The Owls finished in first or second place under Chaney in the Atlantic 10 Conference standings 16 of the last 17 years.

TENNESSEE: Jerry Green was an assistant with Steve Robinson, Kevin Stallings and Mark Turgeon during coach Roy Williams' first four seasons at Kansas from 1988-89 through 1991-92.

TEXAS: The Longhorns' amazing turnaround last season enabled Rick Barnes to become the only active coach to take two different schools to the NCAA playoffs in his maiden voyage with them after they posted a losing mark the previous campaign. He previously achieved the feat with Providence in the late 1980s. Barnes posted the nation's best winning percentage by a first-year major college head coach in 1987-88 when he went 20-10 (.667) in his lone season with George Mason.

UCLA: Albert "Cappy" Lavin, Steve Lavin's father, played for the University of San Francisco in the early 1950s.

UTAH STATE: Stew Morrill played professionally in France after graduating from Gonzaga.

VIRGINIA: Pete Gillen, a second baseman, was captain of Fairfield's baseball team as a senior in 1968. He was an assistant coach along with Rick Pitino under Bruce O'Neil at Hawaii in 1975-76. Gillen posted the nation's best winning percentage by a first-year major college head coach in 1985-86 when he went 25-5 (.833) with Xavier.

WAKE FOREST: Dave Odom is only the second individual in ACC history to go from serving as an assistant at one league member to becoming head coach at another (Virginia to Wake in 1989). Vic Bubas had been the first, going from North Carolina State to Duke thirty years earlier. Odom, who was a guard under High Point's Jerry Steele at Guilford College in the mid-1960s, has two sons who served as assistants for other major colleges in ACC territory--Lane (UNC Charlotte) and Ryan (Furman).

WESTERN KENTUCKY: Dennis Felton served as an assistant for five different Division I universities in a five-year span from 1990 to 1994--Delaware, Tulane, St. Joseph's, Providence and Clemson.

WINTHROP: Gregg Marshall, after his birth in Greenwood, S.C., spent the first 3 1/2 years of his life on College Avenue, which is located adjacent to the Winthrop campus and just a few blocks from his new office in the school's 6,100-seat arena.

WISCONSIN: Brad Soderberg was a teammate of longtime NBA guard Terry Porter when they attended Wisconsin-Stevens Point.