As the college basketball season comes to a close, the coaching carousel begins to turn. Coaches getting fired, getting hired.
Already this off-season we have seen several high profile positions open up such as Cal, Indiana, and Oklahoma State. While Tom Crean has already taken the Hoosiers head position, there are several other jobs still available.
Here is a list of some of the top “up-and-coming” coaches in college basketball. Note: The names on this list are of people who are already head coaches at other programs and have put themselves in a position to move up to bigger name jobs.
Anthony Grant, VCU—Grant is one of the top names up for the LSU job. He was a Florida assistant for 10 years and after leading VCU past Duke in last years NCAA tournament, he was all but announced as the next head man at Florida after Billy Donovan temporarily defected to the NBA. Initially LSU contacted USC head man Tim Floyd before he said he wasn’t interested. As soon as the speculation began, USC insiders pegged Grant as the likely top choice at the school.
2. Darrin Horn, South Carolina—The latest coach to skyrocket up the charts at the surprising coach factory that is Western Kentucky. Led the Hilltoppers to a 111-48 record in five seasons including a sweet 16 birth in this years tourney. The cat’s out of the bag on this guy. Just this week he was named Dave Odom’s successor at South Carolina.
3. Travis Ford, UMASS – Really hot name right now after leading UMASS to the NIT final, which doesn’t seem that impressive. Actually, his overall record as a Division 1 coach is 98-104, but he does have a track record for improving teams. His first job with NAIA Campbellsville University he led his team to a 28-3 record and was Mid-South Conference Coach of the Year.
He moved on to Eastern Kentucky and turned the team around in one year, as they were 7-19 the year before he got there and 22-9 when he took over. He led them to the NCAA tourney and pushed his alma mater Kentucky to the brink before falling short. He is either the first or second candidate along with VCU’s Anthony Grant for the open position at LSU, which would get him back to his SEC roots.
4. Sean Miller, Xavier—Has turned Xavier into a legitimate power in his first head coaching position. Last season they should have beaten eventual national runners-up Ohio State in the second round, and this year they made it all the way to the Elite 8. His name was thrown out there for the Indiana job as well as the South Carolina job already, but many people see him staying at Xavier until his dream job becomes available, which would be the job at Pitt (his alma mater). But that will only happen when and if Jamie Dixon feels the need to return to his roots on the west coast as others have speculated he will eventually do.
5. Jim Christian, TCU
12 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
adam bradley about 1 year ago
I just wanted to point out I'm not a formatting moron. I have no idea what's going on with the formatting. I always seem to have a problem with it on this site.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
Derek Kellogg wasn't on UMass' Final Four team and its spelled Calipari.
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adam bradley about 1 year ago
sorry john
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
USC assistant coach Gib Arnold is known as one of the top recruiters in basketball. Rivals.com ranked him as the #2 best recruiter in basketball. He has a great network. Not only was his dad Wooden's assistant coach, he was very successful as head coach for years at BYU. I played with Gib at ASU. Great, hard working guy who will be a successful D1 head coach soon.
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Anonymous about 1 year ago
Brad Brownell has only taken Wright State to one NCAA tournament. After a late-season collapse, the Raiders missed all post-season opportunities.
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adam bradley about 1 year ago
you're right. my mistake. i'll change it
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Marc Daley about 1 year ago
Duke's assistants haven't done well recently (Quin Snyder, Tommy Amaker, Bob Bender). I think this is a big reason why Collins, Dawkins and Wojo haven't gotten offers.
Bennett and Grier were smart to stay put. Oregon State can't even get kids from their state. San Diego and St. Mary's should get spots again next year with great young talent.
Christian will regret leaving Kent State. Like OSU, TCU hasn't been good in a long time. Even Billy Tubbs couldn't get the program going.
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Joel Koch about 1 year ago
I like your article, but I'm surprised you over looked one coach from Illinois, one who (in many people's opinions is better than Lowery) was taken away from a National title: Tim Jankovich of Illinois State. He was Bill Self's top assistant and led ISU to a 24-9 record in the regular season and lost a heartbreaker against Dayton. Oh yeah, he did this with the same roster (perhaps not as good as ISU lost it's best players to graduation) that Porter Moser couldn't win with. Many think that if he can produce another 20 win season for ISU with all of it's top players (Eldridge will be back) gone, and some role players still around, he could land a power conference coaching job.
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adam bradley about 1 year ago
you know, I did look at Jankovich. He was on my initial list of about 40 or so coaches, and the main reason I left him off was because in my research I didnt really find his name coming up in discussions for other positions. He may have come up somewhere, but I didnt see it. And although there are some guys on the list whose names arent being mentioned elsewhere at the moment, most of them have made some sort of splash this season or last by either making the tourney or such as brian gregory's case, led his team to a top ranking. Jankovich is a good coach, and did an excellent job at Illinois State this season.
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adam bradley about 1 year ago
UPDATE: Trent Johnson of Stanford has just taken the position at LSU. I published this article about 5 days ago, but I started researching it about 2 days before that, and absolutely NOWHERE did I see Trent Johnson mentioned for the job at that time. In fact, I would have put money on Travis Ford being the next coach there. I guess things change quickly in the carousel. Makes me look like an idiot. Oh well.
As far as what I've heard as potential candidates for the Stanford job it's kind of all over the map. I think pretty much everybody is wishing Mike Montgomery had waited a few days and returned instead of signing with Cal. Maybe he'll pull a Billy Donovan and back out. Other than that, I've heard Keno Davis (his father Tom coached at Iowa under current Stanford AD Bob Bowlsby, but Bowlsby did eventually fire him, so that relationship might be soured). Jamie Dixon (because he's from the west coast), Mark Few (once said in an interview that Stanford would be a place he'd consider leaving Gonzaga for), or Bill Grier from San Diego. But seeing how the LSU situation turned out, this could go it some crazy direction.
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George Fitzpatrick about 1 year ago
I think one guy who deserves a mention as an up-and-coming coach is Scott Drew of Baylor - after the school nearly got the death penalty after the scandals and violations, he seems to have finally gotten Baylor back to relevance.
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Chris Tucci about 1 year ago
Kellogg is going to be a great coach at UMass
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