Sega Genesis
Released in 1995 by EA Sports
Grade: B
This game has all the same joys (and flaws) of NBA Live 96 without all that professional basketball nonsense.
Seriously, it’s the same game with college teams. And there’s a big peach wall on one end of the court.
Where it falls in the series
Coach K is the lone EA college basketball game on Genesis, released alongside NBA Live 96. EA picked college ball back up for March Madness 98 on PS1 and kept it up until NCAA Basketball 10 for PS3. It’s not the only college basketball game on Genesis. There’s also College Slam, an NBA Jam rehash, and there’s Dick Vitale’s “Awesome Baby!” College Hoops, which doesn’t even have real teams, and it looks like a mess of a game.
Praises and gripes
It’s speedy, loose, and simple to control. That diagonal view does wonders for 16-bit basketball.
Like Live 96, the game rewards you for working the ball inside and getting open lanes to the rim. It requires a bit of teamwork and a sense of your players’ strengths and weaknesses.
Graphics are choppy but work nicely, and the sound is pleasant.
If you really want, you can try a zone or press defense in the game’s robust-for-1995 strategy settings, but they’re far from authentic, to say the least.
On the downside, rebounding is difficult, AI defenders are clueless, fouls are random, and you end up out of bounds too often.
All the college-y stuff doesn’t add much charm. The courts lack logos and other distinctive features, the players don’t have names, there’s no cool music, and the peach wall … I mean, what can you say about that peach wall? It doesn’t look like college, it looks like high school.
If you happen to be a diehard college basketball fan, this game is for you, and I hope you also like a peach wall.
If not, and you’re standing in a store in front of a $2 copy of Coach K and a $5 copy of Live 96, spend the extra three bucks.
Top teams
This came after the 1995 national championship, won by UCLA over Arkansas, and it came before Kentucky beat Syracuse for the 1996 title. Coach K’s in-game ranked top 10 goes like this: Arkansas, UCLA, UMass, Kentucky, Syracuse, Kansas, Virginia, Arizona, Maryland, Duke. It has 32 teams, plus a few classic teams to help provide a challenge. North Carolina and Georgetown apparently didn’t play ball because they’re both missing.