Grading College Basketball’s Biggest Offseason Coaching Hires
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The men’s college basketball coaching carousel has mostly come to a halt. A few low-major jobs remain open, but unless there’s a late surprise, every high-profile job from the traditional major conferences has been filled after what was a chaotic cycle of moves featuring several big names on the move.
Which programs were the biggest winners and losers this carousel? Sports Illustrated graded every hire to decide who did the best (and worst) for their program this spring.
Georgia Tech: Damon Stoudamire
Most recently an assistant for the Boston Celtics, Stoudamire has NBA experience both as a player and coach. He also spent time as a college head coach, doing admirable work at Pacific, perhaps the hardest job in the WCC. The clearest illustration of his coaching chops: After the Tigers finished No. 117 in KenPom’s rankings in 2021 in Stoudamire’s final season at Pacific, they dropped all the way to No. 293 in ’22.
Georgia Tech is a unique job, located in talent-rich Atlanta but not likely to be a top choice for elite recruits. Stoudamire’s experience coaching the likes of Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown combined with his playing background gives him something to sell to high-level prospects, but the skills he developed finding under-the-radar talent at Pacific may be more transferable to his hopes of winning at Georgia Tech. His staff will be critical, but this is an inspired outside-the-box choice.
Grade: B
Notre Dame: Micah Shrewsberry
Shrewsberry checks so many boxes for this job: He’s an Indiana native, has worked for Brad Stevens and Matt Painter and is fresh off leading Penn State to the NCAA tournament for the first time in more than a decade. For Notre Dame to reel in an established name like Shrewsberry during a time in college coaching searches when few sitting high-major coaches are moving around is a major win for AD Jack Swarbrick and Notre Dame.
At Penn State, Shrewsberry bet big on small ball. It took some nail-biting victories down the stretch to seal the deal, but the bet paid off big with that long-awaited trip to the NCAA tournament. It’s worth wondering how easily he’ll be able to replicate the unique style the Nittany Lions were able to play thanks to All-American point guard Jalen Pickett’s presence, and landing top transfers like Pickett may be more complicated due to Notre Dame’s academic standards. But there’s a lot to like here, and it wouldn’t be at all surprising if Shrewsberry has Notre Dame in the top half of the ACC quickly.
Grade: A-
Syracuse: Adrian Autry
Syracuse immediately elevated Autry to head coach after Jim Boeheim’s retirement in March, giving the 51-year-old former Orange point guard and assistant his first head coaching job. Boeheim’s nearly 50-year tenure at Syracuse makes it almost impossible to evaluate how good a job Syracuse actually is, but as things got stale in Boeheim’s later years the need for fresh ideas in upstate New York became more and more apparent.
Autry is an insider, but seems open to modernizing the program, including less reliance on Boeheim’s patented 2–3 zone defense that has gotten shredded by opposing offenses in recent years. He made an early splash by landing highly touted Notre Dame transfer JJ Starling, and will need similar recruiting victories to build some momentum here. I’d have preferred a full coaching search to see whether a big fish were interested in coming aboard, but given many other high-profile jobs have stayed “in the family” for replacements lately, this wasn’t a surprise.
Grade: B-
Texas Tech: Grant McCasland
Scott Drew’s coaching tree has gotten a lot of love lately after Jerome Tang’s sterling first season at Kansas State. Texas Tech hopes McCasland, who built a dominant mid-major program at North Texas, can continue to add to the Drew tree’s legend. McCasland’s North Texas teams played a grind-it-out style that consistently ranked among the slowest paces in the country, but the results didn’t lie: The only season North Texas won fewer than 20 games under McCasland was the shortened 2021 season, and the Mean Green beat Purdue in the NCAA tournament that year. He’s fresh off a 31-win season in ’22–23 capped by an NIT title.
McCasland isn’t the larger-than-life personality Chris Beard was in marketing the Texas Tech program, but there’s no doubt he’s a high-level coach. If he can properly harness the power of the Tech fan base both in terms of home court advantage and NIL resources in recruiting, the ceiling for this hire is incredibly high.
Grade: A-
Texas: Rodney Terry
This is a difficult hire to grade. A year ago at this time, Terry’s résumé wouldn’t have gotten him more than a cursory glance for a job like Texas, having posted a pedestrian 163–156 career record across 10 seasons at Fresno State and UTEP. But Terry was the next man up after the midseason dismissal of Chris Beard due to domestic violence charges, and there’s no doubt he did an excellent job considering the circumstances. The Texas roster was loaded, but winning the Big 12 tournament and going to the Elite Eight is quite the accomplishment. Plus, Terry is well liked by players and has deep ties to the institution.
A potential parallel situation occurred in 2020–21 at Wichita State, when the Shockers hired longtime assistant Isaac Brown after a successful interim run due to Gregg Marshall’s preseason ouster. Brown galvanized the current roster to an AAC title, but his next two seasons missed the mark, and Wichita State parted ways with him this offseason. Could something similar play out here? Terry has a lot of work to do this spring to get this roster ready to compete again after several key graduations and transfer departures.
Grade: C
Georgetown: Ed Cooley
The biggest thing Georgetown needed after the calamitous end to the Patrick Ewing era was stability, and landing a coach with a Big East title already under his belt in Cooley is a slam dunk. So while it’s reasonable to poke holes in Cooley’s mediocre NCAA tournament track record, Cooley’s exactly what the doctor ordered for the Hoyas right now.
In addition to his proven coaching chops, Cooley is outstanding at marketing his programs and did a great job reengaging Providence fans. The work it will take to rebuild the Georgetown fan base may be even more challenging, but Cooley has the outgoing personality to help turn students out to games and get the community back involved. Plus, his transfer portal savvy has been on full display in recent years at Providence (see additions like Bryce Hopkins and Devin Carter in 2022), and that skill will be a necessity to avoid a long rebuild in D.C.
Grade: A
Providence: Kim English
English clearly fits the profile of the modern high-major coach, a former NBA player who at 34 years old is young enough to still play (and beat) his players in one-on-one and is savvy on social media. That said, there are some reasons for skepticism here. English was good but not great in his two seasons at George Mason, delivering plenty of excitement and a 20-win season in Year 2 but never seriously contending for an NCAA tournament or NIT bid. That résumé alone wouldn’t be enough to make English a serious contender for this job. Providence AD Steve Napolillo is clearly betting on being first to the party on a potential future star in English, a bet that if it pays off could pay big dividends for the Friars. Still, it’s hard to give this hire the same grade as more established names like Cooley and Shrewsberry at their respective new jobs.
Grade: B-
St. John’s: Rick Pitino
There are plenty of reasons not to hire Pitino, but he’s widely regarded as one of the best coaches in college basketball history for a reason. Few people, if any, in college basketball have any doubt he’ll win and win big at St. John’s, and he’ll provide the jolt of excitement the Red Storm fanbase desperately needs in the crowded New York market. It may be temporary (I wouldn’t guarantee that this is the 70-year-old’s last coaching job, and even if it is, retirement is coming eventually), but it’d be a shock if Pitino didn’t compete for Big East title at St. John’s. And considering the other realistic candidates to take the job, this makes this one a slam dunk regardless of his checkered past.
Grade: A
Penn State: Mike Rhoades
A Pennsylvania native, Rhoades becomes the latest former VCU coach to find himself at a high-major job. His style of play is polar opposite of his predecessor at Penn State in Shrewsberry, with Rhoades building strong teams at VCU with length, athleticism and defense rather than the skill and shooting that keyed Shrewsberry’s teams. Still, there’s plenty to like here given Rhoades’s track record for a job that ranks among the toughest in the Big Ten. His teams will have an identity, and the extended pressure defense he deployed so often at VCU could cause problems for Big Ten teams used to more traditional styles.
Grade: B
Cal: Mark Madsen
At Utah Valley, Madsen bucked the trend of former NBA players with limited coaching experience failing at college jobs. He’s fresh off leading Utah Valley to the WAC regular-season title and a 28-win season that culminated in a trip to the NIT semifinals. And to make things more impressive, he did all that the year after losing all-time program great Fardaws Aimaq to the transfer portal.
A Stanford alum, Madsen was pegged by many in the industry as the likely next man up in Palo Alto. But after the Cardinal elected to give Jerod Haase another year, Madsen instead heads across the Bay Area to rival Cal with the hopes of turning around a moribund Bears program. Considering Cal won just three games this past season and has to grapple with not just academic limitations but an uncertain future due to conference realignment, pulling one of the top mid-major names out West is a coup. Stealing him away from a rival? That’s just icing on the cake.
Grade: A-
Ole Miss: Chris Beard
If evaluating this hire solely on its basketball merits, Beard is the best hire of the cycle. His meteoric rise in the profession from semipro basketball to the head coach of Texas was remarkable, and in that process he proved to be one of the sport’s best CEOs: landing top recruits, hiring strong staffs, marketing his programs and advancing in the NCAA tournament. To land a coach of his caliber at one of the worst jobs in the SEC is a massive win.
That said, this hire can’t be evaluated on only basketball. While charges were dismissed, Beard’s arrest on felony domestic violence charges in December and the accompanying police report will follow him for the remainder of his career. Those details call into question Beard as a leader of young men, still the most important attribute in a college coach.
Grade: C
Wichita State: Paul Mills
This is a critical hire for Wichita State, which is at a bit of a crossroads in the post–Gregg Marshall era in an AAC that is weak but winnable. The Shockers are turning to Mills to solidify the program’s place in the college basketball landscape after a successful run at Oral Roberts. Mills took ORU to the Sweet 16 in 2021, then followed that up with another NCAA tournament berth in ’23. Plus, he’s part of that popular Baylor coaching tree that ADs value heavily right now. The main concern: His success at Oral Roberts all happened with one star (point guard Max Abmas) in tow, and Mills went 22–42 in his first two seasons there without him. Will he find another player like Abmas to lead Wichita State back to prominence?
Grade: B
Temple: Adam Fisher
Fisher, an assistant at Penn State under Shrewsberry and before that at Miami under Jim Larrañaga, gets his first head coaching job at Temple. He’s credited with landing prospects Lonnie Walker and Isaiah Wong (both of whom went to high school in Philadelphia suburbs) while at Miami, and got a push from the current Penn State players to take over for Shrewsberry.
That said, this is an awfully important hire to give the job to a guy with no head coaching experience. And given coaches like former Temple assistant Matt Langel (who’s dominating at Colgate) were available, settling on Fisher is quite the risk.
Grade: C
South Florida: Amir Abdur-Rahim
Abdur-Rahim’s 45–74 overall record at Kennesaw State is deceiving. He inherited a total rebuild, won just one game in his first season, but by Year 4 had built the best team in program history and nearly pulled off an upset of Xavier in the NCAA tournament. In an era of coaches looking to quickly flip rosters, Abdur-Rahim took a more methodical approach using mostly freshmen who could develop over multiple years, and it paid off in a big way. South Florida will be a major rebuild, but Abdur-Rahim has experience doing just that.
Grade: A-
