These Kentucky schools have already named new college basketball coaches for next season
The 2025 men’s NCAA Tournament hasn’t started yet, but the coaching carousel is already underway ahead of the 2025-26 season.
And two Kentucky schools have already completed their rides on it.
Bellarmine and Murray State have announced men’s basketball head coaching changes for next season, before this season’s national postseason even begins.
This continues a recent trend of coaching changes in the commonwealth.
Before the 2024-25 season, four Kentucky schools ushered in new head coaches: Pat Kelsey (Louisville), Jonathan Mattox (Morehead State), Hank Plona (Western Kentucky) and Mark Pope (Kentucky) all had varying levels of success this season. Only Kelsey and Pope will be taking their respective schools, U of L and UK, to March Madness this month.
The coaching changes at Bellarmine and Murray State — which are detailed below — mean that only two NCAA Division I schools in Kentucky haven’t made a men’s basketball head coaching change in the last two seasons.
Those schools are Northern Kentucky (Darrin Horn) and Eastern Kentucky (A.W. Hamilton). Horn just finished his sixth season at NKU, and he’s guided the Norse to two Horizon League Tournament championships and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2023.
Hamilton just wrapped up his seventh season at EKU and is the longest-tenured Division I men’s college basketball head coach in the state. In 2024, Hamilton led EKU to its first regular-season conference championship since 1979.
Murray State men’s basketball names Ryan Miller as new coach
Murray State elected to part ways with former coach Steve Prohm on March 8 after Prohm had an unsuccessful second stint as the Racers’ head coach.
From 2011 through 2015, Prohm went 104-29 at Murray State and guided the Racers to four straight Ohio Valley Conference regular-season titles. In 2012, the Racers won the OVC Tournament and reached the NCAA Tournament. Following a six-season run at Iowa State, Prohm returned to Murray as the Racers’ head coach for the last three seasons, but Murray State had a losing conference record in two of those three seasons as a member of the Missouri Valley Conference.
The Racers went a combined 45-52 overall and 29-31 in regular season MVC games during Prohm’s second spell at Murray State over the last three seasons.
To replace Prohm, Murray State has gone with Ryan Miller, who most recently was an assistant coach at Creighton. The Racers officially announced Miller as their next head coach on Monday morning. Miller is the 18th head coach in Murray State history.
“We knew our next leader of the Racers needed to be someone who can evaluate and develop talent, is a proven winner, is a relentless recruiter and can build positive relationships,” Murray State athletics director Nico Yantko said in a statement. “Coach Miller has proven throughout his career that he can accomplish each of those objectives at an elite level, and that is why he is our new Murray State men’s basketball head coach.”
Miller’s résumé is filled with assistant coaching experience at the Division I level. Miller has been at Creighton since 2021, and before that he spent time on the bench at TCU, UNLV, Auburn, New Mexico, Pepperdine and Memphis. While at Memphis, Miller was an assistant director of basketball operations and video coordinator from 2003-06 under John Calipari.
Ryan Miller is the younger brother of Mike Miller, a longtime NBA player who won the league’s Rookie of the Year award in 2001 and the league’s Sixth Man of the Year honor in 2006. Mike Miller won consecutive NBA titles with the Miami Heat in 2012 and 2013.
The Racers last made the NCAA Tournament in 2022, reaching the round of 32 before losing in an upset to 15 seed Saint Peter’s, the school that shocked 2 seed Kentucky in the first round of that year’s March Madness.
Bellarmine replaces legendary coach Scott Davenport with his son
Despite acting quick in moving to replace Prohm, Murray State wasn’t the first Kentucky school this spring to announce a head coaching change.
That distinction goes to Bellarmine. The Knights had a woeful 2024-25 season, going 5-26 overall and 2-16 in Atlantic Sun Conference play. This followed a 2023-24 season in which Bellarmine had only eight wins overall and four wins in league games.
This past season proved to be the last one for legendary Knights head coach Scott Davenport, who announced his retirement on March 10. Davenport spent 20 seasons as the Bellarmine head coach, dating back to the school’s time at the NCAA Division II level.
In total, Davenport — a Louisville native who also coached Ballard to the 1988 Sweet 16 boys state tournament title — won 426 games as the Bellarmine head coach, including the 2011 NCAA Division II national championship. Famously, the Knights also won the 2022 ASUN Tournament title, but Bellarmine couldn’t accept the NCAA Tournament auto-bid that normally comes with that because of the school’s transition process from Division II to Division I, which was finalized last year.
Bellarmine is keeping its men’s basketball head coaching job in the Davenport family, though.
In May 2022, Scott’s son, Doug, was announced as Bellarmine’s “coach in waiting.” That transition process will now come to fruition with Scott’s retirement.
Doug — who played as guard for the Knights under his father’s direction — joined Bellarmine as an assistant coach prior to the 2016-17 season.
Doug has past coaching experience at Eastern Kentucky, Louisville and Xavier. He was on Rick Pitino’s staff at Louisville when the Cardinals won the 2013 NCAA championship, which was later vacated by the NCAA.
This story was originally published March 17, 2025 at 11:12 AM.
