Connect with us

Sports

College basketball coaching carousel: Grading the COVID-era college hoops hires of 2020 — four years later – CBS Sports

Published

on

If not listed, please contact your TV provider.
I’ve been wondering for four years what this story would look like. 
If you’re a regular reader, you’re aware that I don’t grade coaching hiring in the days, weeks or even a year after they get made. Sure, immediate grades are easy fodder for clicks, but I’m more interested in letting the stew cook and giving a coach four full seasons after they get a job to hand out a proper review. It is the fairest — instead of fastest — way to do this. (Obviously, for good and bad, some guys don’t make it four years.)
I look at the entire body of work: overall record, conference success, NCAA Tournament appearances and win rate in the Big Dance (depending on what job the coach takes). There’s also recruiting hits/misses and, in recent years, how coaches have managed the transfer portal. How good was the situation when a coach took the job and where does it stand four years later? 
I normally reserve this annual feature for the high-major hirings, but 2020 was different. With the coronavirus pandemic in full throe, that year’s coaching carousel cycle was the dimmest we had in decades. In fact, only one high-major program made a coaching change. In total as just 24 jobs switched that year. (Compare that to 2024, which had a whopping 64 flips.)
For previous report cards, here are my four-years-later evals from hirings in 201320142015201620172018 and 2019.
It would be no fun to only look at the one power-conference hiring of 2020, though, right? Right. So, for this year only, I’m including five other mid-major hirings from four years back that worked out very well. Here are the most notable coaching moves four years removed from the COVID-impacted carousel. May we never experience anything like it again.
© 2004-2024 CBS Interactive. All Rights Reserved.
CBS Sports is a registered trademark of CBS Broadcasting Inc. Commissioner.com is a registered trademark of CBS Interactive Inc.
The content on this site is for entertainment purposes only and CBS Sports makes no representation or warranty as to the accuracy of the information given or the outcome of any game or event. There is no gambling offered on this site. This site contains commercial content and CBS Sports may be compensated for the links provided on this site.
Images by Getty Images and US Presswire

source

Copyright © 2023 Sandidge Ventures