Coaching carousel winners and losers: Did North Carolina blow it?
Who is up and who is down after the 2026 twirl of the men’s college basketball coaching carousel:
UP: Ambitious mid-major head coaches: In the current men’s college basketball landscape, it seems almost impossible to get a successful high major conference head coach to give up a job.
Of the 12 power-conference job vacancies so far in the current hiring cycle, only LSU, which lured Will Wade back from NC State, was filled by a sitting major-conference head coach.
That has made this a golden hiring period for some of the most-respected mid-major coaches in men’s college hoops.
Casey Alexander (to Kansas State from Belmont); Randy Bennett (to Arizona State from St. Mary’s); Jerrod Calhoun (to Cincinnati from Utah State); Scott Cross (to Georgia Tech from Troy); and Gerry McNamara (to Syracuse from Siena) are among the well-regarded coaches moving up the conference food chain this spring.
DOWN: North Carolina. There is certainly a chance that UNC “doing the Belichick” and hiring longtime NBA head man Michael Malone as its next head coach works out.
The former Denver Nuggets and Sacramento Kings head man is well-regarded as a tactician, is known for creating a culture of accountability on his teams and can sell his NBA ties in recruiting.
However, there’s no guarantee that the genuinely innovative offensive approach by Malone that helped Denver win the 2023 NBA title will translate to a team that does not have Nikola Jokic to make things go.
By the end of Malone’s run in Denver, his high-decibel coaching style had reportedly worn thin with both his players and the Nuggets front office.
In a men’s college hoops era of unlimited, no-penalty transfer opportunities for players, a hard-charging coach is going to be at constant risk of sparking full-scale portal evacuations from a program.
So, while it is certainly possible to envision him succeeding, Malone carries more risk than the typical hire for a college basketball blue blood.
UP: Tommy Lloyd. After media reports that the Arizona coach was the No. 1 target for the North Carolina vacancy, Lloyd parlayed the Tar Heels’ interest into a new contract with his current employer that will reportedly pay him some $7.5 million a year.
Lloyd’s new pact also freed him from directly reporting to UA athletics director Desiree’ Reed-Francois, with whom he reportedly has a tense relationship. Lloyd will instead report directly to Arizona president Suresh Garimella.
Having led his team to Arizona’s first Final Four since 2001, Lloyd put on a clinic in how to deploy leverage in contract negotiations to get what you want.
DOWN: Advocates for Billy Donovan returning to college coaching. The current Chicago Bulls and former Florida Gators coach might have been able to land the Kentucky job two years ago or the North Carolina job this year if he had given either school a strong indication he would take their job.
Instead, in both instances, Donovan reportedly refused to deal with either university until the NBA regular season ended.
Because colleges in the current landscape are going to want to have a head coach in place in time for transfer portal recruiting, waiting on the NBA regular season to end is not realistic.
It might be time for everyone to accept that Donovan, who coached Florida to the 2006 and 2007 NCAA championships, really isn’t interested in ever returning to college basketball.
UP: Comeback coaches. It has been a good cycle for head coaches looking to relaunch their careers.
Former Kentucky point guard Travis Ford, the ex-head man at Campbellsville University, Eastern Kentucky, Massachusetts, Oklahoma State and St. Louis, seems like a good fit at Little Rock.
Mark Turgeon, the ex-coach at Jacksonville State, Wichita State, Texas A&M and Maryland, is making a comeback as the new head man at Kansas City.
Tobin Anderson, who led Fairleigh Dickinson to its epic 2023 NCAA Tournament upset of Purdue and later coached Iona, has replaced John Pelphrey at Tennessee Tech.
DOWN: NC State. The Wolfpack were burned by Will Wade, who bailed after only one season when LSU apparently made him a “stong-ass offer” to return for a second stint as head man of the Tigers.
Ex-Tennessee assistant Justin Gainey, a former Wolfpack guard, will now be NC State’s third head coach in the past three seasons.
UP: Boston College fans. With the Eagles’ hiring of Connecticut assistant Luke Murray, BC fans will presumably get to interact at games with the new coach’s father — the actor Bill Murray.
DOWN: Luke Murray. Given some of the credit for the sophisticated offensive concepts utilized at Connecticut under Dan Hurley, the new Boston College head man has taken on one of the most difficult of all the power-conference coaching jobs.
BC has had seven losing seasons in the past eight. The Eagles have not had a winning record in ACC contests since 2010-11 (9-7). Boston College has not played in the NCAA Tournament since 2009 and hasn’t won a game in March Madness since 2007.
You might say Luke Murray will be trying to succeed at a school whose fortunes have mostly resembled a grim, basketball version of the movie “Groundhog Day.”
