As the season is coming to an end, who should K-State hire as their next head coach?

Kansas State is scheduled to play BYU in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament, but it will likely be their last game of the season, and the next head coach should be announced soon after.

Before the Mid-American Conference Tournament championship game, John Groce, the coach of the Akron Zips, and Travis Steele, the coach of the Miami RedHawks, met. | Jeff Lange / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

College basketball analysts believe that these current Division One coaches would be a viable fit for the Wildcats. However, they might not be the best choices to be the next head coach of the Kansas State basketball program. One coach, however, clearly is the number one choice.

No. 4 Jerrod Calhoun

One of the best candidates is Jerrod Calhoun, who is currently the head coach at Utah State. His name comes up most often when people talk about the K-State coaching vacancy. Calhoun was a mentee of Bob Huggins, who was the head coach at K-State for a brief time, and Calhoun has proven he can win tough games against superior opponents. He took Utah State to a regular-season championship in the Mountain West this season and a trip to the NCAA Tournament in 2025, which is a good reason in itself to consider him the next coach of the Wildcats.

He is also considered a "program builder" who is known to take mid-major programs to the next level, such as transforming them into competitive teams that can contend for conference championships and NCAA Tournament appearances. The Big 12 landscape is an area he is familiar with because he knows teams in the area surrounding the state of Utah well and can quickly reload through the transfer portal, which he is likely to have to do if he were to become the Wildcats coach.

No. 3 Casey Alexander

Many people in the mid-major ranks think that Belmont's Casey Alexander is one of the smartest coaches when it comes to in-game strategy. He has always kept Belmont at the top of the Missouri Valley Conference, even though they lose outstanding players every year to the transfer portal. For him, the fact that he won 20 or more games as the head coach at Lipscomb and Belmont every season for the past ten years makes the case for why he would bring stability to the Wildcats program.

He would be a viable choice because the Kansas State athletic director, Gene Taylor, has always valued stability and coaching with morals and ethics. Alexander has a "plug-and-play" method, which is a coaching approach that allows players to somewhat easily adapt to new systems or in-play strategies, and it has worked better than expected in the past. It has led to improved team performance and player approval in coaching stops at Stetson, Lipscomb, and especially at Belmont.

No. 2 Chris Mack

Some people think that Chris Mack from Charleston might be able to win in Manhattan due to his coaching experience. If Kansas State needs a coach with experience at the Power Four and high mid-major level to stabilize the program after what happened with Tang, Mack is the most well-known mid-major coach looking to prove he can win at the Power Four level. Mack was very successful at Xavier before taking over at Louisville in 2018. There, he led the team to trips to the NCAA Tournament with four Sweet 16 and one Elite Eight appearance while the coach at Xavier. Then he became the coach at Louisville, where he won 44 games in his first two seasons there. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, he was not as successful thereafter and was let go, finishing with a disappointing record from a fanbase with very high expectations that reflected the challenges faced by many teams and coaches during that time. He has since bounced back as the head coach of the Charleston Cougars. leading them to a combined 45 wins in his first two seasons there.

If the Wildcats were to hire Mack as their head coach, he might be a good choice because he knows how to get the best available players and has coached under a lot of pressure. K-State would be moving away from "rising stars" and toward a proven, experienced coach who has already coached on the biggest stages in the game. He is not flawless, and he is far from perfect as a head coach, but it wouldn't be shocking if K-State wanted him to be their next head coach.

No. 1 Travis Steele

Travis Steele is one of the most intriguing possibilities for the Kansas State position right now. This is mostly because he is in charge of one of the most amazing turnarounds in college basketball history at Miami (OH).

Steele has been working on leading his team to an undefeated record for the regular season during the 2025–26 season to meet the "program-building" and "stability" needs that K-State Athletic Director Gene Taylor has made clear he is looking for in a new basketball coach.

Steele has led the Miami RedHawks to a perfect 31–0 record in the regular season, making them the last team in Division I to not lose a game. In just four years, he turned a team that hadn't had a winning season in over ten years into a national mid-major juggernaut.

His 2026 team is second in the country in points scored (90.9 PPG) and fifth in offensive rating. K-State supporters have been wanting this "exciting" style of play ever since the offense stopped constantly performing at a high level in the 2025–26 season, which led to a decline in team morale and fan engagement.

Steele has already been in charge of a high-major program, which is different from many mid-major "rising stars." He worked at Xavier (Big East) for 14 years, first as an assistant to Chris Mack and later as their head coach. He was the head coach there for four seasons and led the team to a 70–50 record and the 2022 NIT Championship by beating Texas A&M.

College basketball experts have said that Steele has fixed the "late-season fades" that hurt his time at Xavier, as evidenced by his teams at Miami, which have grown and stayed strong in February and March these past two seasons, demonstrating his ability to maintain performance during critical periods of the season. His teams at Miami have grown and stayed strong late in the season these past two years. He has shown that he can keep talented players in the current era by keeping his core squad at Miami, even though Power Four schools are very interested in them.

Going back to his coaching at Xavier, he was responsible for multiple top-25 national recruiting classes while at Xavier. K-State needs a coach who can quickly use their NIL resources to compete with big teams in the Big 12 like Kansas and Houston. Steele signed an extension with Miami that lasts until 2032, but reports say that his buyout is "strikingly low" and coach-friendly for a Power Four institution like K-State that wants to make a move. He is 44 years old and matches the criteria of a long-term option who can bring back the stability that the program lost when Tang and Taylor had a falling out.

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