College Basketball Coaches Who Will Face the Most Pressure in 2015-16

There's specifically one reason why there are so many timeouts, especially toward the end of games.

Players may make plays and win games, but college basketball is a coach-driven entity. The power is still theirs. Of course, it has to be. That's because the best players don't tend to stick around often.

The stardom creates a one-name basis with many of the best coaches (one letter in Coach K's case), like Roy, Cal, Bill, Boeheim—and formerly Billy, before he left for OKC.

It's not like the coaches need their due. But it's time to examine some of them. Next April will bring its own fresh cycle of hired-and-fired. For now we'll look at who has the heat ratcheted a few degrees heading into the season.

Sometimes, it's because of expectations. Sometimes, it's because of past failures adding up to create a win-or-buyout-clause dynamic.

These are the guys who may face the most scrutiny in the 2015-16 season.

Brian Gregory, Georgia Tech

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Sure, he earned a pay raise for the move. But you have to feel a little bit for Brian Gregory, who had a nice gig at Dayton and then couldn't resist the lure of the ACC after the 2010-11 season.

Now, look what Dayton's done since then: Elite Eight two years ago, third round last season.

And Gregory has a decidedly worse record, especially when considering he's won just 19 regular-season ACC games (including a 3-15 mark last year).

Long live Paul Hewitt and Jarrett Jack, right?

The Yellow Jackets went 12-19 last season. They lost Demarco Cox and Robert Sampson to graduation, but at least they return their two most productive players: senior forwards Charles Mitchell and Marcus Georges-Hunt.

Alabama transfer Nick Jacobs should help too. He averaged 7.3 points and 3.4 rebounds per game and has been a steady shooter who led the Crimson tide in field-goal percentage (nearly 54 percent) in 2012-13.

Gregory is a team-first, no-nonsense coach who hasn't had enough winning to really get a team to buy in. His tenure got off to a tough start, with NCAA recruiting sanctions coming not long after Tech hired him, but he knows as well as anyone it's a no-excuses profession. This could be his last shot to build a winner, which never comes easy in the ACC.

Dave Rice, UNLV

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Rice went to UNLV under the most unique of circumstances. An alumnus of the school (part of the great teams in the early 1990s alongside Larry Johnson and Greg Anthony, among others) he had never been a head coach before—and had just helped produce the NCAA player of the year as essentially the offensive coordinator at BYU with Jimmer Fredette.

Truth is, it's been a tough transition back to Las Vegas. Three straight third-place finishes in the Mountain West took a major step backward last year with an 18-15 mark and a seventh-place finish (8-10) in league play.

Rice—who understood how to recruit effectively at stingy BYU alongside head coach Dave Rose—has often had significant recruiting classes that simply haven't panned out.

The Runnin' Rebels have looked selfish and undisciplined too often at worst or totally overhyped—along the lines of Pacquiao-Mayweather—at best.

Homegrown Stephen Zimmerman highlights this year's recruiting class, and he's the fourth 5-star recruit to wind up at UNLV in Rice's tenure, according to ESPN. That's pretty heady stuff for a non-power league school.

But Rice eventually has to find a jackpot, or he'll be asked to move on from a place he loves dearly.

Lorenzo Romar, Washington

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Romar could be an obvious case of overstaying his welcome. When you're losing players to in-state schools in less prestigious leagues, there's smoke. And when there's smoke, firing may not be far behind.

Sure, Nigel Williams-Goss isn't headed to some slouch—he's going to Gonzaga. But the former UW starting point guard took his team-best 15.6 points average with him. 

And speaking of average, that's what the Huskies have been in recent years. They haven't had a losing season but have missed the NCAA tournament the past four seasons, including going postseason-less the past two.

In April 2010, Romar signed a 10-year contract extension, so it remains to be seen if administration would go for a big buyout. UW will be young this year, but the Pac-12's significant exodus to graduation and early entry to the NBA should be a leveling out that will help Romar's cause.

And if not, he may just be pushed out of his alma mater.

Tom Crean, Indiana

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From the "time flies" department: Isn't it wild that Crean is entering his eighth season in Bloomington? And it was early in the 2011-12 season when the Hoosiers ousted No. 1 Kentucky on a buzzer-beater and also toppled top-five nationally ranked teams, and Big Ten colleagues, Ohio State and Michigan State.

Crean had turned the corner with the down-and-out program.

And now it seems like this could be the end of the road. Indiana made a pair of Sweet 16 appearances, didn't go to the NCAA tournament two years ago and bowed out to Wichita State in the round of 64 last March. He's been booed at games, and so has his family.

Crean's 2015-16 campaign will be built, or torn down, by high expectations. James Blackmon Jr. and Yogi Ferrell came back. Heralded recruit Thomas Bryant—Steve Jones of the Courier Journal questioned whether he was perhaps scared off by the NCAA sanction issues with Syracuse—offers a post presence that should alleviate some pressure on Crean and a guard-heavy team.

This season may also showcase a lot about Indiana fans, even if it's a (loud) minority that are booing Crean's kids or smoking the pipe dream that Brad Stevens will come back to the state of Indiana.

Travis Ford, Oklahoma State

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Sometimes, making the NCAA tournament—even for three consecutive years—doesn't ensure job satisfaction or safety.

OSU's Ford was rumored to be a virtual coin flip from being ousted after last season, according to John Helsley of the Oklahoman. His team ended about as fashionably as that orange jacket pictured above.

The Cowboys lost seven of their last eight games, including road tilts with Texas Tech and TCU and a Big 12 tournament blowout to Oklahoma. Then there was the opening-game NCAA tournament loss to Oregon.

There have been concerns and petitions in Stillwater that Ford is in over his head in the Big 12. Producing 8-10 records the last two years is Exhibit A.

Shaka Smart, Texas

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Now, we know Shaka Smart will have a honeymoon period.

The question is, how long of one?

He signed a lucrative contract to be lured from VCU, and now we'll see what kind of coach Smart really is. He'll be in a much tougher night-to-night conference and in his first year, anyway, not seem to have all of the parts to make his famed "Havoc" defense hum.

So will Smart go full-bore and sacrifice some of this season to set the tone? How much will he relent to just try to get through the Big 12? And naturally we have to wonder how players will respond to his style versus longtime leader Rick Barnes.

UT went to the Elite Eight in 2008 under Barnes, but it otherwise felt like an underachieving tenure, right or wrong. Smart—fair or not—always seemed to overachieve at VCU.

His first year will easily be the most scrutinized around the college basketball kingdom as he makes the big leap into a new world.

Josh Pastner, Memphis

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College basketball's version of Doogie Howser, M.D. (look it up, kids) may be at a critical junction for his career and Memphis' program.

Pastner has hardly been a failure, and following a wildly good (some would certainly say controversial, considering some NCAA issues) run by John Calipari, he's still produced four NCAA tournament bids in his six years.

And to think he doesn't even turn 38 until September.

But Pastner also hasn't shown anything to make Tigers fans believe a big postseason bump is coming. There was talk in the offseason that he was going to dump his coaching staff, per Don Wade of the Memphis News.

He's looked more like a recruiting wizard than an X's and O's master to many of his critics.

Late last season, Pastner responded, according to BBallJones.com: 

"

We’ve done a lot of good. We have been really good in so many areas. We’ve been great in the community, and there’s a lot to be said for that. And we’ve won. I mean, we’ve won a lot of games. I know people say, well we haven’t gotten to the Sweet 16. Listen, I want to go 40-0 and win the national championship. The last two years, we fell a game short of the Sweet 16. That’s no fun for anybody.

"

Memphis went just 18-14 last year (10-8 in the AAC), and it had to be, to paraphrase Pastner, no fun for anybody. The Tigers lost an exhibition game against Division II Christian Brothers.

Freshman point guard Dominic Magee transferred less than a month into the season, perhaps mostly because he wanted to be closer to his son, as Pastner told 247Sports (via NOLA.com). Memphis started with its worst record (4-3) since 2000.

But Pastner is old enough to know that his team needs to have a better year.

Frank Martin, South Carolina

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Frank Martin is one of two things—fiery or unbearable, perhaps depending most of all upon the perspective of how his team is doing.

Two years ago, Martin was suspended one game for language deemed unbecoming of a coach toward his players. Last season, the Gamecocks' third year with him in charge, produced a winning record for South Carolina for the first time since 2008-09. That included a win against Iowa State and two versus Georgia.

But Martin is hardly going to deem his vocal cords unnecessary. Cajoling will be in order as his team went just 17-16. It also went 6-12 in SEC play, and he's a rather unsavory 15-39 in league play since moving over from Kansas State—where the first-time head college coach had won 61 percent (51-32) of his Big 12 attempts.

Because of the troubles in SEC play—which let's face it, has been a reasonable conference to achieve success outside of beating Kentucky—this could become a make-or-break year for Martin's tenure.

John Groce, Illinois

Kiichiro Sato/Associated Press

Who knew replicating his success at Ohio would be so tough?

Groce enters 2015-16 having missed the NCAA tournament the past two seasons. He went to Illinois after a Sweet 16 run in 2012 but all he has to show for it is one NCAA postseason win in 2013 followed up by a couple of brief NIT appearances.

Illinois hasn't had such an NCAA drought since the 1991-92 campaign.

There's hope for a rebound, and the roster may provide the outsider expectations that could haunt Groce's future in Champaign if he doesn't pull out some wins. Junior guards Kendrick Nunn, Jaylon Tate and Malcolm Hill are all back. The recruiting class includes Jalen Coleman-Lands, D.J. Williams and Aaron Jordan.

Tracy Abrams is back after missing last year with a knee injury. The 6'2'' guard averaged about 30 minutes and 11 points two seasons ago.

The truth is, Groce has never been a great conference-play coach. His Ohio teams went 34-30. Illinois is 24-30 on his watch.

Groce has been accused of not growing the Illini product during his relatively brief tenure by Chris Emma of CBS Chicago. But he'll be on watch all season, as success can be had there—as Lon Kruger, Bill Self and Bruce Weber all can attest.

Bruce Weber, Kansas State

Orlin Wagner/Associated Press

...And speaking of Weber.

He was always a curious hire at Kansas State. Remember, this is a guy who held a funeral his first year at Illinois—he had grown so weary of talking/hearing about predecessor Bill Self, he wanted to bury it.

Then he was handed the Kansas State job and has fallen far behind as Sunflower State hoops program No. 3 with Wichita State and Self's Kansas Jayhawks annually thriving.

Weber lost his cool big-time last season and will be under significant pressure this year after a ton of roster upheaval and general program/fan angst.

This season may not cool off those concerns. K-State dropped six underclassmen after last season because of dismissal or transfer, including top contributor Marcus Foster. Next-in-line Thomas Gipson and Nino Williams were seniors, so Weber has a fresh slate, for better or worse.

“We didn’t have kids who did the right things, and we had to make a decision,” Weber said in April. “We feel good about the guys we have coming in. We feel good about the guys we have coming back. I think with a great spring and summer we are going to be very competitive.”

Jimmy Patsos, Siena

Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press

This being the last slide, it could easily go a few directions.

An obvious choice could be Barry Hinson at Southern Illinois (40-57 in three seasons, plus that oddball diatribe in 2013). Or Andy Enfield (bust at USC so far) and Kim Anderson (9-23 in his first year at Missouri), but the latter two may be still too early in their tenures to totally feel the heat or the buyout clause kicking in.

But Patsos will feel the pressure, and it will be an interesting job to keep an eye on.

Siena has a proud history that includes former coaches Paul Hewitt and Fran McCaffery, who have gone on to bigger and better things.

Patsos is most famous for holding Steph Curry scoreless during his time at Loyola, but he has otherwise hardly been so interesting at the Albany, New York, school.

Siena won the third-tier CBI his first year and was cursed by injuries last season and went 11-20.

Patsos' situation is magnified by a couple of factors: Across town, Albany has been to three straight NCAA tournaments (the schools play in different leagues), and now Siena's off-campus home court, Times Union Center, holds the MAAC tournament. Siena played Iona tough but still bowed out in the first round of it last year.

The MAAC is a solid league. Iona and Manhattan have picked up their games in recent years.

That means Patsos may have to recalibrate fast, or perhaps Siena looks to reignite its fanbase with an up-and-coming assistant from a higher-tier program.