By Mike Douchant

Bob Knight and Rick Pitino are dominating the headlines by returning to the coaching sideline at Texas Tech and Louisville, respectively. But if history means much, it's difficult to envision either of them being as successful as they were while capturing NCAA crowns at Indiana and Kentucky.

Before making their decisions, they might have been wise to use current coaches Jim Harrick (Georgia), Steve Fisher (San Diego State) and Rollie Massimino (Cleveland State) as consultants.

Despite Georgia's turnaround this year to earn an at-large invitation to the NCAA Tournament, the odds were against Harrick, Massimino and Fisher ever breaking a jinx for former NCAA championship coaches who returned to the collegiate level at different schools.

Knight and Pitino hope to avoid the pitfalls encountered by Massimino. The 1992-93 season with UNLV was a clear indication to Massimino, coach of 1985 NCAA titlist Villanova, that he probably won't be an exception to a pragmatic rule. The Rebels' streak of consecutive Big West Conference championships ended at 10 when they compiled a 4-5 league road record, notched a 2-5 mark in games decided by five points or less, endured an academic fiasco involving star player J.R. Rider and lost their NIT opener at home before just 5,000 fans in 19,000-seat Thomas & Mack Center after failing to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. And the worst was yet to come for Massimino, who eventually was forced out of Vegas.

It probably didn't enter Massimino's decision-making process while mulling over whether to leave Philadelphia and head West, but NCAA championship coaches who changed jobs and wound up coaching other colleges have never reached the Final Four again let alone repeated their success of capturing a national title.

Perhaps that accounted for some of the gut-level thinking when Don Haskins maneuvered to get out of a deal to coach Detroit after winning the 1966 national title with Texas Western (now Texas-El Paso). Similarly, Knight chose to stay at Indiana at one point rather than accept a lucrative offer from New Mexico. Of the coaches to win a Division I title and eventually coach another university, none of them rediscovered what they formerly possessed. By any impartial measure, former Providence mentor Pitino will be fortunate to become the first coach to guide three different schools to the Final Four.

The experiences of championship coaches who sampled the wine on the mountaintop and then moved to other major schools is chilling. Consider the following track records stacking the odds against Knight and Pitino reaching the Final Four let alone capturing another title:

NOTE: Harrick coached Rhode Island in 1998 and 1999 and Sloan also coached Florida from 1961 through 1966.