By Aidan Joly
The games for the college basketball season came to a close on Monday night, but that does not mean the storylines have come to an end. Here at the start of the offseason, these are my favorite head coach hires so far.
Fred Hoiberg to Nebraska
After the debacle that was the firing of Tim Miles by the Nebraska administration, they got a home run hire in Hoiberg. This is a guy who should not be looked at as a failed NBA head coach, but someone who turned around the program at Iowa State from 2010-2015. He won four NCAA Tournament games in four appearances, and won the Big 12 tournament twice, something that is obviously really difficult to do in that conference. He’s from the area, and he’s a name that recruits will recognize, which helps. It will be a tough task to turn around a program that has made the tournament only once since 1998, but I think Hoiberg could be the guy to do it.
Buzz Williams to Texas A&M
This was the worst-kept secret in college basketball. Williams comes from Virginia Tech and was finally the coach who got them nationally-relevant, getting them to the second weekend for the first time in 52 years. Texas A&M is a program where you have to compete with a high-level football program, but Williams has done that successfully with the Hokies. Billy Kennedy had a level of success making the Sweet 16 in 2016 and 2018, but never did anything past that. The Aggies have players with potential, especially Savion Flagg, so now it’s time for Williams to take that next step.
Nate Oats to Alabama
The fact that he signed a six-year extension with Buffalo and jumped ship to Alabama two weeks later is a little curious, but if there was a time for Oats to leave, it’s now. The entire core at Buffalo this year were seniors in CJ Massinburg, Nick Perkins, Jeremy Harris and Dontay Caruthers, so Buffalo is bound to take a sizable step back in 2019-20 after winning NCAA Tournament games each of the past two years. Buffalo is easily the best program in the MAC, but moving to the SEC is obviously quite the jump. He will have to compete with Nick Saban but Oats is a guy who has won at all levels of basketball, so he is a coach that has a lot of potential in his first power-conference job.
TJ Otzelberger to UNLV
UNLV is an extremely tough place to win at. But Otzelberger’s previous job, South Dakota State, is also a tough place to win at. Otzelberger did that in his three years at the helm for the Jackrabbits, getting to at least the NIT in each of his three seasons, and got to the NCAA Tournament twice, and won 70 total games in his three years, including a mark of 35-11 in conference play with the help of one of the best mid-major players in the country in Mike Daum. He’s still a young coach at the age of 41, too. It might be a struggle at first but I can see him getting the Runnin’ Rebels back to the tournament, a place where they have not been since 2013.
Jamion Christian to George Washington
As someone who has followed the program at Siena for almost 15 years, Christian bolting from the Saint after one year at the helm came as a pretty big shock to me. I figured he was a climber since he left his alma mater in Mount St. Mary’s to take the job at Siena about a year ago, but he totally changed the culture for Siena in one year, getting them 17 wins (not to mention one of them being over the Colonials) and an appearance in the MAAC semifinals. He landed the eventual MAAC player of the year in Jalen Pickett and got Mount St. Mary’s to a pair of NCAA Tournaments out of the NEC in six seasons. The Atlantic-10 is seem as a nice step up from the MAAC, and will take over a struggling program in DC that won all of four conference games this season.
PS: I like Siena hiring Carmen Maciariello to replace Christian, too.
Ron Hunter to Tulane
I’m a huge fan of Ron Hunter in general, so I’m happy that he can take a step up from Georgia State, which is a program on the rise. Hunter is on the second half of his head coaching career and is 55 years old, but is still a high-energy guy that wears his emotions on his sleeve. Who can forget him crying in the press conference with his son RJ after they got bounced in the second round in 2015? And that was after he fell out of the stool when he made the buzzer-beater in the first round to beat Baylor. Tulane has not been nationally relevant in years, but this seems to be a great place for Hunter to shine. He did everything he could in the Sun Belt, and this is a good challenge in a conference that has the likes of Houston, Cincinnati and UConn.
Casey Alexander to Belmont
Alexander jumps from Lipscomb to Belmont, two schools which are separated by less that two miles. He will be replacing a coaching legend in Rick Byrd, who spearheaded the Bruins for 33 years and won 713 games with the school, and finally won his first NCAA Tournament game this season, albeit a game in the First Four, but that doesn’t matter. A win is a win. Alexander is a former Belmont assistant under Byrd from 1995-2011 before taking the head coaching job at Stetson and eventually Lipscomb, so he’s a guy who knows the program and its values well. He got the Bisons to its first NCAA Tournament last year, and were the runners-up in the NIT this year. If not for the selection committee, Lipscomb could have made the tournament this year as an at-large. Now, it’s a small step up from the Atlantic Sun to Ohio Valley, but I feel that Alexander will stay around for a while and continue Byrd’s legacy.
AJ Hoops 