The basketball coaching carousel: Why Louisville is a winner and the SEC is a loser
.JPG "Former Kentucky assistant and Louisville player Kenny Payne appears to be the right man at the right time in his new role as U of L head coach.")
Other than Selection Sunday, the most interesting part of every men’s college basketball season comes after the balls stop bouncing.
That’s when the backroom deal-making fires up and the coaching carousel twirls to life.
So far, the 2022 rendition of coaching musical chairs has seen 12 power-conference jobs change hands — six in the Southeastern Conference alone.
Even as the carousel continues to spin, here are the winners and losers:
▪ UP: Louisville. As with anyone assuming their first head coaching position, there’s much we don’t know about Kenny Payne. What kind of in-game strategist is he? What are his preferred offensive and defensive styles of play? Can he organize and manage a program?
Yet, with all that, Payne, 55, was the right hire for Louisville at the right time. Once a standout player at U of L under Denny Crum in the 1980s, Payne is a human bridge to Louisville basketball success from a far less tumultuous era than the Cardinals’ scandal-filled recent past.
As U of L’s first Black head men’s basketball coach, Payne seems well-suited to help bridge the gap that had developed between Louisville and some of its former players.
A respected recruiter in his days (2010-2020) as a John Calipari assistant at Kentucky, Payne should be able to make Louisville relevant in wooing high-level players in a way it has not recently been.
Similar to Mike Woodson at Indiana (although without the NBA head coaching resume), Payne brings maturity and diversified basketball experiences to his alma mater with the task of reviving a traditional hoops brand name that has lost its luster.
▪ DOWN. The SEC. Maybe it was the search for “the next Nate Oats” — the former Buffalo Bulls coach who won the SEC championship by his second year on the Alabama sidelines.
Or maybe SEC schools have so much money tied up in football facility upgrades — while their boosters are tapped out funding “NIL collectives” for underwriting football recruiting — that they had to “go cheap” on men’s basketball coaching hires.
Whatever the reason, of the SEC’s six openings this spring, five were filled by mid-major head coaches — Florida’s Todd Golden (came from San Francisco), LSU’s Matt McMahon (Murray State), Mississippi State’s Chris Jans (New Mexico State), Missouri’s Dennis Gates (Cleveland State) and South Carolina’s Lamont Paris (Chattanooga).
Among those five, there will probably be at least one breakout star — but shouldn’t the almighty SEC have been able to attract coaches of greater stature?
▪ UP: Mike White. At Florida, White’s sin was being a good coach (142-88 in seven seasons with four NCAA Tournament trips) trying to replace a great coach in Billy Donovan (467-186 in 19 seasons with four Final Fours and two NCAA championships).
In a deft career-management maneuver, White left his carping critics behind in Gainesville by making the surprise jump to Georgia. As an experienced SEC head man, White should hit the ground running. He inherits the chronically underachieving Bulldogs program with nowhere to go but up off a 6-26 disaster in Tom Crean’s final season.
▪ DOWN: Frank Martin. Cut loose by South Carolina after his 10 seasons yielded only one NCAA Tournament trip — albeit a Final Four run in 2017 — Martin took on the very-challenging position as Massachusetts head coach.
In the 21st century, UMass has now had six times more head coaches (six counting Martin) than trips to the NCAA tourney (one, under Derek Kellogg, in 2014).
Martin’s wife, Anya, is a former UMass track star, so he may have had sentimental reasons for taking the Minutemen job.
But given his prior success at Kansas State (four NCAA tourney trips in five seasons) and the South Carolina Final Four, Martin might have been able to land another power-conference job had he been patient.
▪ UP: Seton Hall. What were the odds the Pirates would have a head coaching vacancy just as ex-Seton Hall guard Shaheen Holloway blew up into the country’s preeminent rising coaching star by leading Saint Peter’s (sorry, UK fans) on a miracle run to the NCAA tourney round of eight?
▪ DOWN: Maryland. Kevin Willard actually had a better overall winning percentage (58.3 in 12 seasons) at Seton Hall than PJ Carlesimo (56.1 in 12 seasons). Yet one wonders if the former Bowling Green High School guard is a big enough persona to animate the slumbering Terrapins program.
▪ UP: The Miller brothers. One season after Sean Miller was fired at Arizona and Archie Miller got the ax at Indiana, both landed on their feet in jobs where a coach can win.
Sean returns for a second stint at Xavier (where he went 120-47 from 2004-2009). Meanwhile, Rhode Island hired former Dayton Flyers head man Archie, putting him back in the conference, the Atlantic 10, where he has enjoyed his greatest success (139-63 at Dayton).
▪ DOWN: Bashir Mason. The new Saint Peter’s head man went 165-130 in 10 seasons at Wagner and won three Northeast Conference regular-season titles. A Jersey City, N.J., product, Mason should know the lay of the land at Saint Peter’s.
Nevertheless, it might be easier to follow Mike Krzyzewski at Duke in 2022-23 than it will be succeeding Shaheen Holloway at Saint Peter’s after the Peacocks were the darlings of March Madness.
