The college hoops coaching carousel has almost run its course.
Of the 48 transitions at Division I programs in this spin of the carousel, 46 have been finalized. As of 1 p.m. Eastern time on Wednesday, April 27, only two open jobs remain: Delaware in the Colonial and Northern Colorado in the Big Sky.
We’ve devoted several pieces to the 2016 basketball carousel, and in this piece, we combine some of those notes while adding some final observations.
*
Of the 46 jobs filled, 27 involve coaches who will be permanent Division I head coaches for the first time in their careers.
Of the 46 jobs filled, 10 involve coaches who spent seven or more seasons at their previous job. Herb Sendek (Santa Clara) spent a similarly long tenure at his previous school (Arizona State), but didn’t have a coaching job this past season.
At the 10 schools where a long-tenured coach left his post in search of another job, here are the replacements:
At Army, where Zach Spiker left after seven seasons, Jimmy Allen replaced him.
At Memphis (Josh Pastner), Tubby Smith entered as the replacement.
At New Mexico State (Marvin Menzies), Paul Weir.
At NJIT (Jim Engles), Brian Kennedy.
At Oklahoma State (Travis Ford), Brad Underwood.
At Pittsburgh (Jamie Dixon), Kevin Stallings.
At South Dakota State (Scott Nagy), T.J. Otzelberger.
At Stanford (Johnny Dawkins), Jerod Haase.
At Stony Brook (Steve Pikiell), Jeff Boals.
At Vanderbilt (Stallings), Bryce Drew.
The breakdown of replacements from that list above:
Five (5) jobs were filled by other head coaches; three (3) were filled by internal promotions of assistants; and two (2) were filled by assistants hired from other programs.
The breakdown of job transitions (out of 48) by conference:
West Coast and Horizon League: 4 each
Ivy, Colonial, The American, Big 12, Conference USA: 3 each
Sun Belt, Summit, ACC, Ohio Valley, WAC, Southland, Big Sky, America East, Mountain West: 2 each
Patriot, Northeast Conference, Atlantic Sun, Big Ten, Atlantic 10, Pac-12, SEC: 1 each.
*
The nature of each coaching move:
— 24 assistant coaches with no previous experience as permanent head coaches were picked to be head coaches, whether internally or by another program.
— 19 men with previous D-I head coaching experience were selected as head coaches. Of these 19 men, 17 were active head coaches; one was a head coach-turned assistant, Rick Stansbury (hired by Western Kentucky); and one was an inactive head coach, Herb Sendek (hired by Santa Clara).
— 2 interim coaches (one internally, one by another program) were selected as permanent head coaches: Anthony Stewart at Tennessee-Martin, and Todd Simon (the interim coach of UNLV) at Southern Utah.
— Mike Dunleavy, Sr. of Tulane fit none of those three categories.
— 2 jobs remain open.
*
Above, we mentioned that 19 men with prior experience as permanent D-I head coaches found new head coaching jobs. Of those 19 men, 17 were active head coaches at other programs. Here is that list, with the departures and arrivals included:
— Zach Spiker: Army to Drexel
— Ray Harper: Western Kentucky to Jacksonville State
— Kyle Smith: Columbia to San Francisco
— Josh Pastner: Memphis to Georgia Tech
— Marvin Menzies: New Mexico State to UNLV
— Jim Engles: NJIT to Columbia
— Travis Ford: Oklahoma State to Saint Louis
— Jamie Dixon: Pittsburgh to TCU
— Steve Pikiell: Stony Brook to Rutgers
— Scott Nagy: South Dakota State to Wright State
— Johnny Dawkins: Stanford to UCF
— Brad Underwood: Stephen F. Austin to Oklahoma State
— Chris Beard: Arkansas-Little Rock to Texas Tech
— Bryce Drew: Valparaiso to Vanderbilt
— Jerod Haase: UAB to Stanford
— Tubby Smith: Texas Tech to Memphis
— Kevin Stallings: Vanderbilt to Pittsburgh
Of the 17 transitions mentioned above, 8 are clearly upgrades, 4 are clearly downgrades, and 5 can be debated or regarded as lateral moves.
The four downgrades, just so you’re not left wondering: Dawkins (Stanford to UCF), Dixon (Pitt to TCU), Ford (Oklahoma State to Saint Louis), and Harper (Western Kentucky to Jacksonville State).
