Only college sports has the offseason start while the postseason is still going on. Men’s college basketball is feeling that in a big way right now, with tons of coaching hires and transfer portal additions happening at the same time as the 2025 NCAA tournament trims its field to the Sweet 16.
The coaching carousel is already in full swing with some of the openings already being filled by power conference teams. Will Wade was agreeing to a deal with NC State hours before his McNeese Cowboys team won their first NCAA tournament game in program history. Texas made a surprising coaching moves days after being eliminated from March Madness, while Indiana and Iowa acted quickly to fill their openings.
The coaching hires just getting started in men’s college basketball, and there’s bound to be more surprising openings over the next month. Let’s grade the hires made during this first wave and set early expectations for the coaches at new programs going forward.
Indiana grade for Darian DeVries hire
Coaching the Indiana Hoosiers should be one of the best jobs in college basketball on paper. Indiana has tradition, it has deep NIL pockets, and it has a rabid fanbase. Anyone who could return the Hoosiers to glory would be an icon in Bloomington forever, but after 20+ years of disappointment, that’s easier said than done.
The home run hire for Indiana was never going to come to fruition. The decision is hire Darian DeVries feels more like trying to hit a double. DeVries can get results: he made the NCAA tournament three times in his last four seasons at Drake in a one-bid league. He should have made the tournament in his first season at West Virginia this year but got screwed by the Selection Committee. The nice thing about hiring DeVries is he already comes with a star player: his son Tucker DeVries will certainly be following his dad to Indiana for his sixth season of college basketball. He’s the type of big wing shooter Indiana desperately needed the last couple years.
The minimum for DeVries’ tenure should be making the NCAA tournament every year. I think he can do that with the resources he’ll have at Indiana. It’s hard to predict big success when he’s never won an NCAA tournament game, though much of that could be attributed to the randomness of March. This feels like an okay hire, if still a little underwhelming.
Grade: B
Iowa grade for Ben McCollum hire
It’s going to be odd to see someone other than Fran McCaffery on the sidelines for Iowa men’s basketball after a 15-year tenure. New hire Ben McCollum parlayed one great season at Drake into a Big Ten job after spending 15 years himself coaching DII Northwest Missouri State.
Northwest Missouri State was a powerhouse under McCollum with four DII national championships. All Drake go 31-4 in his first season and win an NCAA tournament game over Missouri. The big question for the start of McCollum’s tenure is if he can convince star point guard Bennett Stirtz to join him in Iowa City. Stirtz was a stud for McCollum at Northwest Missouri State and morphed into the best mid-major player in the country at Drake. He has real NBA draft interest, and could start a major NIL bidding war if he returns to college and tests the market.
It’s risky hiring a DII coach with one year of DI experience for a Big Ten job. If McCollum brings Stirtz with him, Iowa can compete for an NCAA tournament spot next season. Even if he doesn’t, the Hawkeyes should be patient with McCollum, because his system gets great results. This feels like a high-risk, high-reward hire, but I love it for Iowa.
Grade: A-
NC State grade for Will Wade hire
When Will Wade was fired from LSU back in 2022, college basketball was a totally different landscape. Wade was canned for his connections to the sport’s sweeping FBI investigation, and spent the last two years rebuilding his reputation at McNeese, where he led the program to its first ever NCAA tournament victory this year with a surprising win over Clemson.
Wade’s “strong-ass offers” will be totally legal these days. NC State should have plenty of resources to build a contender in a weak ACC coming off a shocking Final Four run in 2023. Wade has proven he can identity talent even at the lower levels, and he gets them to buy into a defense-first system which relies heavily on athleticism and switching principles. I trust him to get talent, and I trust him to coach it up.
The Wolfpack should be a top-5 program in the ACC year-in and year-out if the resources are there. Other programs like Indiana might have been scared of Wade’s baggage, but those worries should be buried in the past. Wade gets the job done, providing both a high floor and high ceiling for NC State going forward.
Grade: A
Texas grade for Sean Miller hire
Poor Xavier has now seen Sean Miller leave twice. The last time it happened, Miller was landing five-star recruits and regularly making the second weekend of the tournament at Arizona. He might still be in Tucson if the Wildcats never got entangled in the old FBI investigation.
Miller is going to have elite resources at Texas just as he did at Arizona, and that makes this a promising hire. The Longhorns have never had a problem landing McDonald’s All-Americans, with a lineage that stretches from Kevin Durant to Tre Johnson. Miller will get them playing defense at a high-level, and he got Xavier to take a lot more threes than usual this season, too.
Texas is always going to be considered a sleeping giant in basketball. Miller might not be a home run hire at this stage of his career, but he’s still a good pick with plenty of years in coaching left at 56 years old.
Grade: B+
Virginia grade for Ryan Odom hire
Ryan Odom gave Virginia the greatest embarrassment in college basketball history when he led No. 16 seed UMBC over the Cavaliers’ No. 1 seed back in 2018. Now Odom is headed to UVA after a successful stop at VCU that saw him dominate the Atlantic-10 this past season.
Virginia is still reeling from Tony Bennett’s surprise retirement before the season. There was a reason Bennett hung it up at 55 years old: he didn’t think Virginia could maintain its impressive results in the new era of college basketball, where NIL money is king. Can Odom get better resources than Bennett had at the end of his tenure? If not, it’s going to be hard to get better results, though the ACC being down does allow for some upward mobility.
Odom just knows how to coach. He got Utah State into the tournament in back-to-back years before making the big dance in two out of his three seasons at VCU. He’s been known to recruit international players, and that could be a big help again if Virginia can’t win bidding wars for top transfers. Anyone would have a hard time living up to Bennett’s legacy without top NIL dollars, but Odom has been successful everywhere he’s been, and that makes me think he’ll figure it out one way or another.
Grade: A-
Minnesota grade for Niko Medved hire
Minnesota men’s basketball is never going to be an easy job, but it feels like the program made the best possible hire with Niko Medved. The Minneapolis native graduated from the school in 1997 and has been building his resume as one of the sport’s best mid-major coaches ever since.
Medved made the NCAA tournament in three of his last four years at Colorado State, where he produced pros like David Roddy and Nique Clifford. Medved finally got his first NCAA tournament win this year, and he should have had another one if not for Derik Queen’s buzzer-beater for Maryland.
Medved’s offensive sets were beautiful to watch at their best at Colorado State. He has a tough jump in front of him trying to compete in the Big Ten, but if anyone can do it at Minnesota, it feels like it’s him.
Grade: A
