Steve Moore has accomplished a lot during his time as The College of Wooster’s head basketball coach. Thursday, his accomplishments earned him a chance to join some of the game’s greatest legends.
Moore is up for consideration for induction to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. This year’s nominees were announced on ESPN’s “NBA: The Jump” on Thursday. Moore is one of 50 nominees from the Hall of Fame’s North American Committee — a list which also features former NBA legends Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett.
Moore will find out if he’s a finalist for Naismith’s 2020 induction class on Friday, Feb. 14, in conjunction with NBA All-Star Weekend. The announcement of the 2020 induction class is set to take place on Saturday, April 4, as part of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Final Four in Atlanta, Georgia.
The Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame “honors and celebrates basketball’s greatest moments and people.” Most, but not all, of the college coaches already enshrined in the Hall have won at least one national championship as a head coach.
The highly respected coach more than makes up for it by how he’s gone about leading his charges over the years, and as a result, Wooster’s sustained a near-unparalleled level of success. Simply put, Moore’s resumé definitely fits the billing as “one of basketball’s greatest people.”
The numbers speak for themselves. He is 12th all-time in NCAA coaching victories and second within Division III with 853 — 766 of which have come at Wooster. Only six of the 11 coaches with more wins than Moore can say they’ve won at least 750 games with one team.
Wooster has won 20 or more games in 23 consecutive seasons. Only the University of Kansas has a longer active streak among NCAA men’s basketball programs. There’s very little margin for error in Division III when it comes to keeping that streak intact with a regular season slate of 25 games. Division I programs have a little more breathing room with 31 games in the regular season.
The Scots have danced in March for 17 consecutive years – the longest NCAA Tournament streak in Division III history. Wooster has made three trips to the national semifinals during that run and played in the 2011 national championship game.