College basketball coaching grades: Grading each hire, how they fit

For 68 men’s college basketball programs, March comes with the opportunity to compete for a national championship in front of millions of fans on the biggest, grandest stage that their sport has to offer.

For dozens of others outside of the NCAA tournament field, and even some in it, March is a time to dream of better days that might be ahead in the not-so-distant future.

The annual college basketball coaching carousel is a time for hope, with programs across the country looking for the x-and-o maestro or ace recruiter who can help them compete for NCAA tournament appearances, conference titles and maybe just maybe Final Fours and national championships.

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It doesn’t always work out that way, of course. For as many schools that find their savior, there are many more than find themselves in the same position of looking for a new coach only a handful of years later.

As hires are made, they’re dissected by fans and media across the country who try to assess whether or not they’ll work. It’s an imprecise exercise. In the past 10 years alone, there are universally praised hires like Archie Miller at Indiana and Chris Mack at Louisville who didn’t pan out and were gone within four years. Conversely, there are other, more unproven commodities like Tommy Lloyd at Arizona and Jon Scheyer at Duke who had never previously been Division I head coaches, but who now lead teams that are No. 1 seeds in this year’s NCAA tournament.

All of this is a longwinded way of saying what you’re about to read could turn out to be hilariously wrong.

As the coaching carousel starts to settle, USA TODAY Sports has graded hires from college basketball’s five major conferences and the top mid-major leagues.

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College basketball coaching hire grades

This will be updated to include hires as they occur.

Jerrod Calhoun , Cincinnati: A-

A Cincinnati program that has been shut out of the NCAA tournament every year since Mick Cronin left for UCLA in 2019 may have finally found the right person to lead it back to prominence.

Calhoun checks off virtually every quality the Bearcats could have hoped to fulfill. He has ties to the area, as an Ohio native and a Cincinnati graduate. He has ties to the program’s glorious recent past, having worked as an assistant under Bob Huggins. Most importantly, he’s been a winner everywhere he’s been. He went 124-38 and finished as national runner-up once in five seasons at Division II Fairmont State. He put up a respectable 118-106 record at Youngstown State, one of the more difficult jobs in the Horizon League. Most recently, he guided Utah State to a 55-15 mark in two seasons, which included two NCAA tournament berths.

There’s no guarantee he’ll thrive with the Bearcats — in a league as deep and difficult as the Big 12, that’s impossible — but on paper, he makes all the sense in the world for a historically decorated program that’s dying for a winner.

Randy Bennett , Arizona State: A-

For all of their inherent advantages — an enormous and famously fun school in one of the country’s biggest cities — the Sun Devils have been a basketball afterthought for much of their recent history, having not earned better than a No. 10 seed in the NCAA tournament since 2009 when James Harden was suiting up for them.

With Bennett, there’s reason to believe better days should be ahead. Bennett completely transformed Saint Mary’s, leading a program with three all-time NCAA tournament appearances at the time of his hiring in 2001 to the Big Dance 12 times in his final 22 seasons there. He did so with a distinct and consistent identity, with plodding, tough-minded teams built around strong defenses and international players.

The question becomes how transferrable is that blueprint from the West Coast Conference to the Big 12, especially at a school with so little historical success, but Bennett’s fully capable of doing what so many haven’t in Tempe.

Will Wade , LSU: A-

Say what you will about Wade — and whew, there’s plenty to say — but he wins.

He has won nearly 70% of his games as a head coach and eight of his past nine teams have made the NCAA tournament in seasons in which the event was held. He won 51 games in two seasons at VCU. In his first go-around at LSU, he took the Tigers to the NCAA tournament three times in four seasons in which it was held, highlighted by a Sweet 16 run in 2019. After making the tournament twice in a two-year rehabilitation stop at McNeese, he led NC State to an eight-win improvement in his first and only season in Raleigh, though given the talented roster he assembled there, he may have underachieved a bit.

The SEC is deeper and more challenging than it was during Wade’s first LSU tenure, but unlike their football program, the Tigers don’t expect to be national title contenders in men’s basketball. Because of that, expect college basketball’s oddest reunion to go pretty well, especially since his strong-ass offers that were once federal offenses are now a standard part of negotiations in the NIL era.

Bryan Hodgson , Providence: B+

Hodgson’s resume is relatively thin, which is the only reason this grad isn’t higher, but it’s quite impressive.

The 38-year-old western New York native learned for eight seasons as an assistant under one of the country’s best coaches in Nate Oats and has implemented Oats’ fast-paced, 3-point-heavy system to great success at Arkansas State and South Florida, where he went 70-37 in three seasons and showed an eye for overlooked talent like eventual American Conference player of the year Izaiyah Nelson.

There’s some risk with this hire, but the upside, particularly with what projects to be a large NIL war chest for the Friars, is immense.

Alan Huss, Creighton: B+

This hire wasn’t exactly a surprise, as Huss was tabbed as Creighton’s associate head coach and coach-in-waiting last year. With Greg McDermott’s retirement this month, he officially takes over at his alma mater.

Huss is as familiar with Creighton as anyone, having played at the school and later coached there under McDermott for six seasons as the Bluejays were regularly among the best teams in the Big East. He thrived for two seasons at High Point, taking over a program that went 14-17 the season before he took over and guiding it to a 56-15 mark while coaching some of the top offenses in the country.

Moving on from a long-tenured coach like McDermott is never easy, but this is a transition that, at least on paper, should work out.

Chris Mack , South Florida: B+

Since leaving Xavier in 2018, Mack’s had an unusual career path. Had it not been for a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic, he’d maybe still be the coach at Louisville, but because of it, his best Cardinals team lost a shot at a Final Four run in 2020 and Mack’s sloppy handling of COVID-19 protocols put his 2020-21 squad on the wrong side of the tournament bubble , setting up his exit in 2022.

He returned to the sidelines in 2024 at Charleston, where he went 45-20 in two seasons, though he failed to make the NCAA tournament after the Cougars went twice in three seasons under his predecessor, Pat Kelsey. It’s difficult to nitpick this hire too much, though, with a South Florida program with two tournament berths since 1993 getting a coach who has won 67.9% of his career games and had Xavier as a No. 1 seed only eight years ago.

Michael Malone , North Carolina: B

The biggest job available this cycle — and arguably the most coveted job in the sport — ended with perhaps the biggest surprise, with the Tar Heels turning to longtime NBA coach Michael Malone, who led the Denver Nuggets to a championship in 2023. It was the conclusion of a meandering search, one in which North Carolina reportedly struck out on Tommy Lloyd, Dusty May, Brad Stevens and Ben McCollum.

Malone undoubtedly has coaching bona fides, having led the Nuggets to six playoff appearances and having overseen the development of three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic . Over the course of his time as a head coach and assistant in the NBA, he coached Jokic, LeBron James , Steph Curry , Chris Paul and Klay Thompson , among others, and his experience at that level could make for an enticing recruiting pitch to top players.

Still, there are plenty of questions about the hire. He hasn't been a college coach since 2001 and will have to become quickly acquainted with a rapidly evolving sport. He'll need to hire a staff with significantly more college experience than him. And even if he does excel, what would stop him from going back to the NBA, where he'd be one of the most sought-after candidates for virtually any vacancy?

Casey Alexander , Kansas State: B

Alexander never technically made the NCAA tournament at Belmont – his 2020 team qualified before the COVID-19 pandemic canceled the event – but he did about everything else you realistically could. He went 166-60 and won at least 20 games in each of his seven seasons at his alma mater. He ran a beautiful, modern offense. Perhaps most importantly for a school like Kansas State, he was a masterful player evaluator, signing the previously unheralded likes of Wil Richard, Ja'Kobi Gillespie and Cade Tyson before they transferred to power-conference schools.

He inherited a much better situation from Rick Byrd at Belmont than he will taking over for Jerome Tang at Kansas, and the geographic fit isn’t seamless for someone who’s spent his entire career in the southeast, but this is an understandable move.

Ben Jacobson , Utah State: B

The Aggies have been a lucrative way station for up-and-coming coaches for the better part of a decade now. Over the past six seasons, they’ve had four different coaches, each of whom left for a bigger job elsewhere. Despite that turnover, they’ve remained successful, going to the NCAA tournament five times in that six-year stretch and now, they’ll turn to Jacobson to keep that trend going.

Jacobson is older and more established than his predecessors, coming off a 20-year run as the head coach at Northern Iowa. The Panthers made the NCAA tournament only once in his final 20 years there, but they would have almost certainly made it in 2020 and were steadily consistent throughout his tenure in one of the most difficult non-Power Five conferences. If recent history at Utah State has taught us anything, this will probably work out.

Justin Gainey , NC State: B-

Gainey's never been a head coach before, but he's widely respected across the sport and has spent the past five years working under Rick Barnes at Tennessee, which has made the Elite Eight in each of the past three seasons.

The learning curve for a first-time head coach in a power conference like the ACC can be steep, though last year alone, Jai Lucas at Miami showed that it's possible to find immediate success while making that transition. While Gainey's a gamble, he's an NC State graduate and former player who understands some of the program's challenges and quirks, which should be a welcome development for a school and fan base that was just burned by Will Wade's one-year stopover.

Gerry McNamara , Syracuse: B-

The program hiring a successful former player to be its head coach has been a well-traveled path in college basketball the past 15 years, one that has been unsuccessful more often than not.

There’s reason to believe McNamara could be different, though. Unlike some of those other hires like Patrick Ewing and Chris Mullin, he has previous college head-coaching experience, having taken over a Siena program that was 4-28 the season before he arrived and leading it to 23 wins and an NCAA tournament berth only two years later. He’s spent all but five of the past 24 years of his life at the school in some capacity, making him intimately familiar with some of the challenges it presents. If nothing else, his status as a beloved former player should help the Orange in their NIL efforts.

Syracuse has been largely an afterthought the past five years and reportedly lagged behind many of their ACC competitors with what they paid for their roster, but with McNamara, there’s at least potential for a better way forward.

Wes Miller , Charlotte : B-

Only 10 days after being fired at Cincinnati, Miller was hired by Charlotte. It’s a return to Miller’s roots, as a North Carolina native who was previously successful at UNC Greensboro, where he went 125-43 in his final five seasons before leaving for the Bearcats. He never quite found his footing at Cincinnati, where his teams regularly languished offensively and failed to make the NCAA tournament in five seasons.

This could very well be a case of a young coach returning to a familiar area and to a level of the sport where he’s more likely to succeed. It’s fair to wonder, though, whether the quick turnaround from Cincinnati gave him adequate time to dissect what went wrong there and what he can do to improve as a coach.

Luke Murray , Boston College: B-

Murray presents one of the more confounding assessments this cycle. How do you evaluate what appears to be an excellent hire at one of the more hopeless situations in a major conference? The Eagles have been terrible since firing Al Skinner in 2010, going 184-290 overall and 73-200 in the ACC over the past 15 seasons. Their biggest brush with national relevance during that time was a teary eyed player after a 7-25 season in 2015-16 saying the highlight of his college career was going out to eat on road trips.

Murray has the potential to curb at least some of that futility. He’s widely regarded as one of the sharpest offensive minds in the sport, has worked alongside maybe the best coach in the game in Dan Hurley for eight seasons and was instrumental in UConn winning two national championships. He’ll be a first-time head coach, sure, but there’s plenty of reason to be optimistic about what he can do running his own program.

However, given what Boston College has been for almost 20 years now, is modest success even possible?

Scott Cross , Georgia Tech: C+

Cross has been one of the more underrated coaches in the sport for the past 15 years and his firing at UT Arlington in 2018 stands as one of the most baffling college basketball coaching moves this century. He has a strong overall record, 350-260 across 19 seasons in Division I, and just led Troy to five straight 20-win seasons and back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances.

If anything, this grade’s more of a reflection of Georgia Tech, which has inherent, sometimes unavoidable obstacles and which has one NCAA tournament berth since 2010. Cross has shown he can do more with less and he’ll need to if he’s going to turn the Yellow Jackets into a steady winner in an improving ACC.

Ronald Nored , Butler: C+

As it has for decades, the Bulldogs turned to someone within their own orbit when choosing a new coach. Nored was a point guard on Butler's teams that made the national championship game in 2010 and 2011. From there, he immediately stepped into coaching, primarily in the NBA and G League.

Nored is well-respected in the basketball world and his time in the NBA should be appealing to recruits and transfers he tries to bring in. But his lack of college experience, with just one season as an assistant at Northern Kentucky 10 years ago, makes this a risky move, particularly at a program like Butler that has lagged behind its competitors in the Big East in NIL resources.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: College basketball coach moves: Grading the hires in 2026 cycle