Hoops: College coaching carousel 2025

[THookem]

https://www.insidethehall.com/2025/02/17/indiana-basketball-coaching-search-hot-board-candidate-tier-list/

[THookem]

https://www.si.com/college/indiana/basketball/dick-vitale-makes-suggestion-for-indiana-basketball-coaching-search-tony-bennett-virginia-01jmcn819tsf

[THookem]

https://athlonsports.com/college/indiana-hoosiers/what-to-know-about-the-indiana-coaching-search-in-mid-february-ncaa-big-ten-hoosiers

[THookem]

https://www.thedailyhoosier.com/iu-basketball-coaching-candidate-profile-scott-drew/

[THookem]

https://www.si.com/college/indiana/basketball/indiana-coach-search-the-ultimate-program-architect-scott-drew-built-baylor-from-the-ground-up-01jmdgy4f64p

[Gerry Hamilton]

Still hearing Scott Drew for Indiana - is most likely. 

[tylerlindsey2111]

10 hours ago, TexasFanatic said:

Texas needs to hire the Tech coach

Guys, and I mean this with all due respect for the person, coach and teacher Grant is, you do not want to hire him. That is not a good fit. It is not what will excite the fanbase, it is not stylistically what you want (for the most part) and I am not sure he would even entertain it, as he knows it isn't a good fit. Let him go to Baylor.

[jlcollins519]

29 minutes ago, tylerlindsey2111 said:

Guys, and I mean this with all due respect for the person, coach and teacher Grant is, you do not want to hire him. That is not a good fit. It is not what will excite the fanbase, it is not stylistically what you want (for the most part) and I am not sure he would even entertain it, as he knows it isn't a good fit. Let him go to Baylor.

Tyler....thanks for your input.  You may have posted your opinion somewhere about this and if so, sorry I missed it, but if Texas does decide to make a change after the season, who would be on your short list?

[tylerlindsey2111]

I haven't put enough legitimate thought into it to give a real list yet, but @bierce brought up a good candidate in Richard Pitino at UNM. I wrote up a summary of his offensive prowess after watching some film.

 

[Jordan91]

1 hour ago, tylerlindsey2111 said:

Guys, and I mean this with all due respect for the person, coach and teacher Grant is, you do not want to hire him. That is not a good fit. It is not what will excite the fanbase, it is not stylistically what you want (for the most part) and I am not sure he would even entertain it, as he knows it isn't a good fit. Let him go to Baylor.

I think he would say no, and Tech fans would never shut up about it. 

[Hashtag]

15 hours ago, bierce said:

I don't get why you would be so happy to have McCollum but not baby Pitino.  Read the stuff Tyler wrote about his offensive style.  Now consider that he built a powerhouse in the MWC which is several steps up from the MVC, where McCollum is a first year coach.  Pitino already has recruiting contacts in Texas, having pulled multiple players from the Metroplex including future NBA draft pick JT Toppin, as well as guys from San Antonio and the Beaumont area.  Don't know if he has any Houston contacts, but we can always get him to get palsy with TJ for that.  For UNM he's mined the portal, the LA area, Phoenix, and internationals.  He still has recruiting contacts in the Miami area from his time at UF and his year coaching FIU.  He's kind of like McCollum with a nation-wide recruiting network already in place.

Is it because he didn't do better at Minnesota, where no one has done well for 25 years?  Seriously, the guy who put Gonzaga on the map crapped out there.  Tubby Smith is a Hall of Fame coach, and he missed the tournament half the time, never won a tournament game, and never finished over .500 in conference there.  Pitino would have made 3 tournaments out of the last 4 if he had not lost 2 starters with three weeks left in the season.  His replacement has gone 20-53 in conference since then.   That is how bad the Minnesota job is. 

Because I think we could get a better candidate. 

 

Attainable guys we could go after IMO are

 

Tommy Lloyd
Dusty May
TJ Otzelberger - Probably a longer shot than others considering his wife's affiliation with Iowa St
Mick Cronin
Chris Jans

 

McCollum would be the take a shot and hope you hit hire, period. He plays boring offense but he can coach.

[tylerlindsey2111]

33 minutes ago, Hashtag said:

Because I think we could get a better candidate. 

 

Attainable guys we could go after IMO are

 

Tommy Lloyd
Dusty May
TJ Otzelberger - Probably a longer shot than others considering his wife's affiliation with Iowa St
Mick Cronin
Chris Jans

 

McCollum would be the take a shot and hope you hit hire, period. He plays boring offense but he can coach.

I mean no insult when I respond to this, but I am going to give you some basketball reality on those guys:

Lloyd might be in play, but I seriously doubt it. West coast guy his whole life, at a school that LOVES and spends on hoops. Stylistically would not excite a bunch of people, usually plays at least 1.5 true bigs and his guards have been known to be inefficient chuckers.

May and Otz - quit wasting air on them. 0% chance. May would only leave for IU, but probably will not. Otz is going to have the arena named after him.

Cronin - very good basketball coach, always has success in tourney because of his style. Might will look because of travel in new big 10, do not see the fit for him here. Very abrasive.

Jans - l o l. Stunned does not begin to describe what I would be if he was entertained. Good basketball coach, can win anywhere. Much better fit at a job like he has now.

McCollum - while I agree he is not the best fit here due to lack of P4 experience, to say he plays boring offense shows you know nothing of his accomplishments and teams at NW MO State. 4 titles, 395-81. His teams consistently were some of the most cutting edge and dynamic offensive teams in the country, regardless of level. What you are seeing is him recruiting his guys, several of which do not have a ton of d1 characteristics and them playing slower, more methodical because of it (and lack of depth). He is a winner, and a helluva basketball coach. The oversight, recruiting and business side of being at Texas worry me about him. Not him as a coach.

Edited Wednesday at 03:34 PM by tylerlindsey2111

[bierce]

24 minutes ago, Hashtag said:

Because I think we could get a better candidate. 

 

Attainable guys we could go after IMO are

 

Tommy Lloyd
Dusty May
TJ Otzelberger - Probably a longer shot than others considering his wife's affiliation with Iowa St
Mick Cronin
Chris Jans

 

McCollum would be the take a shot and hope you hit hire, period. He plays boring offense but he can coach.

McCollum plays a slow offense this year because his guys are used to playing that way from last year and moved up from DII with him.  A few years back his teams lit up the scoreboard.

Sark is not going to pay the basketball coach 80% of Sark's salary, which is probably about what it would take to get Lloyd, who is at one of those few career destination jobs in basketball.

[bierce]

Jans inherited a strong program from Howland at Miss State, and  NMSU was the traditional power in the WAC, so it's not like he ever had to rebuild.  He's also 55 and has won no more NCAA tournament games than Pitino.

[THookem]

 

[bierce]

23 minutes ago, THookem said:

 

Even better was the comment about how he blames only himself because he would be accused of throwing players under the bus otherwise.  Then he described a bunch of things in terms of "I guess we didn't go over" while listing a bunch of things they obviously emphasized in practice for this particular game.

He's not someone who interviews politely after a loss or two or four.  He had a near meltdown, make it real meltdown, in mid-January.

Edited Wednesday at 05:34 PM by bierce

[Jordan91]

3 hours ago, tylerlindsey2111 said:

I mean no insult when I respond to this, but I am going to give you some basketball reality on those guys:

Lloyd might be in play, but I seriously doubt it. West coast guy his whole life, at a school that LOVES and spends on hoops. Stylistically would not excite a bunch of people, usually plays at least 1.5 true bigs and his guards have been known to be inefficient chuckers.

May and Otz - quit wasting air on them. 0% chance. May would only leave for IU, but probably will not. Otz is going to have the arena named after him.

Cronin - very good basketball coach, always has success in tourney because of his style. Might will look because of travel in new big 10, do not see the fit for him here. Very abrasive.

Jans - l o l. Stunned does not begin to describe what I would be if he was entertained. Good basketball coach, can win anywhere. Much better fit at a job like he has now.

McCollum - while I agree he is not the best fit here due to lack of P4 experience, to say he plays boring offense shows you know nothing of his accomplishments and teams at NW MO State. 4 titles, 395-81. His teams consistently were some of the most cutting edge and dynamic offensive teams in the country, regardless of level. What you are seeing is him recruiting his guys, several of which do not have a ton of d1 characteristics and them playing slower, more methodical because of it (and lack of depth). He is a winner, and a helluva basketball coach. The oversight, recruiting and business side of being at Texas worry me about him. Not him as a coach.

Thanks for clearing that up. Some of these names just indicate a lack of research. 

[bierce]

1 hour ago, Jordan91 said:

Thanks for clearing that up. Some of these names just indicate a lack of research. 

And the erroneous perception that a non-basketball school can money-whip anyone to become second banana to football.  Beard?  Sure, because he was previously an assistant here and was at a lesser school in the conference (sorry, Tech fans).  But guys don't leave places like Arizona or UCLA unless they are kicked out. 

And May was talking up Michigan NIL over the summer, promising how it would soon lead the Big Ten in NIL for basketball, and saying it wasn't there yet, but it was making rapid strides.  I guess so, landing in demand bigs like Goldin and Wolf, adding P5 starter Donaldson from tOSU, 20 mpg Auburn guard Gayle, and big name freshman Sam Walter from Alabama, while hanging on to Burnett and Tschetter and signing several four star out of high school.  Here's a wild guess--that took quite a bit more than we spent on Johnson, Kaluma, Pope, and company. 

[BobInHouston]

When people became disappointed with who Texas brought in in the portal, perhaps they should look at it as having maxed out their budget. They took Kent and Larry because they best represented the kind of player who might be able to make the jump, because they didn't have to money that some of these other schools did.

They couldn't get Toppin, and a couple of other guys with high price tags. They tried... just couldn't make a deal.

[Jordan91]

32 minutes ago, BobInHouston said:

When people became disappointed with who Texas brought in in the portal, perhaps they should look at it as having maxed out their budget. They took Kent and Larry because they best represented the kind of player who might be able to make the jump, because they didn't have to money that some of these other schools did.

They couldn't get Toppin, and a couple of other guys with high price tags. They tried... just couldn't make a deal.

The best way to prove that is to simply watch them. They play like guys that do not get a lot of money. 

[Hashtag]

35 minutes ago, BobInHouston said:

When people became disappointed with who Texas brought in in the portal, perhaps they should look at it as having maxed out their budget. They took Kent and Larry because they best represented the kind of player who might be able to make the jump, because they didn't have to money that some of these other schools did.

They couldn't get Toppin, and a couple of other guys with high price tags. They tried... just couldn't make a deal.

Maybe the coach shouldn't be a lame duck and he'd have funds.

[BobInHouston]

1 hour ago, Hashtag said:

Maybe the coach shouldn't be a lame duck and he'd have funds.

After one season?

[Hashtag]

1 minute ago, BobInHouston said:

After one season?

Yes, expecting people to pony up NIL for a coach they don’t believe in regardless of year 1 or 2 especially 7 figures for one player is not likely. 

[Jordan91]

22 minutes ago, Hashtag said:

Yes, expecting people to pony up NIL for a coach they don’t believe in regardless of year 1 or 2 especially 7 figures for one player is not likely. 

Well Tech had no problem doing it. 

[Hashtag]

Just now, Jordan91 said:

Well Tech had no problem doing it. 

Well let me know when Texas has a Cody Campbell fully backing our NIL