2024 men's coaching hot seat: Who's at risk, who's up next?

A year ago at this time, expecting more than a dozen high-major jobs to change hands during the 2023 coaching carousel would have sounded incredibly far-fetched.

It was a long cycle, starting in January with Chris Beard's firing from Texas and Mike Brey's decision to step down at Notre Dame, and ending with Bob Huggins resigning from West Virginia in June less than 24 hours after being arrested on a charge of driving under the influence. In between, there were certainly plenty of unforeseen twists and turns.

Syracuse announced in a simple press release mere hours after an ACC tournament loss that Jim Boeheim would not return as the school's men's basketball head coach after 47 seasons. Providence's Ed Cooley left his hometown school for conference rival Georgetown after Patrick Ewing was let go. Texas and Texas Tech made changes due to off-court issues less than two years after making hires -- and then Beard was hired at Ole Miss. Rick Pitino was hired at St. John's, and returns to the high-major level in New York.

What's the early read on the 2024 hot seat? We likely won't have former powerhouses like Georgetown and St. John's looking to make a return to their glory days, while it's too early to tell whether we'll bid farewell -- for one reason or another -- to one of the faces of the sport for the fourth year in a row like we have with Roy Williams (2021), Mike Krzyzewski (2022), Jay Wright (2022), Boeheim (2023) and Huggins (2023). If the past 10 months are any indication, though, the carousel never goes as planned.

ACC

The ACC starts with a coach who has seemingly been on the hot seat since the mid-2010s:  Clemson's Brad Brownell. Athletic director Graham Neff sent out a letter in March 2022 saying the Tigers didn't meet expectations and the goal was to get back to the NCAA tournament last season. Despite going 14-6 in the ACC and winning 23 games in 2022-23, Clemson didn't hear its name on Selection Sunday. But Neff made the decision to keep Brownell for another season -- and the heat is on once again. Brownell has been in charge since 2010 and has gone to the NCAA tournament three times. He's signed through the 2025-26 season but has a modest buyout.

Louisville's Kenny Payne had about as bad of a debut season as one can have in 2022-23. The Cardinals lost their first nine games -- including to Bellarmine, Wright State and Appalachian State -- and ultimately finished 4-28. While it feels premature to put a coach on the hot seat after just one season, the fan base is already getting impatient. Payne did generate some buzz with a top-10 recruiting class (although Trentyn Flowers turned pro late in the summer), but the Cards need to show improvement on the floor. Louisville would owe him $8 million if it fired him after this season.

Neither Florida State's Leonard Hamilton (75) nor Miami's Jim Larrañaga (74) has given any indication they plan to retire -- Hamilton told Stadium this over the summer, while Larrañaga shared this at last season's Final Four.

As for Hubert Davis, assuming North Carolina gets back to the NCAA tournament, he should be fine. Last season was arguably the biggest disappointment in recent college basketball history, with the Tar Heels going from preseason No. 1 to missing the Dance completely -- but he did guide the Tar Heels to the title game two seasons ago and has a potential second-weekend team on paper this season. Barring another complete disaster, the hot seat seems like a stretch.

Big East

With St. John's and Georgetown making moves last spring, there's very little to monitor in the Big East. DePaul's Tony Stubblefield could use a step forward in Year 3, but the Blue Demons gave Oliver Purnell and Dave Leitao five and six seasons, respectively, to try to turn things around. Another 3-17 Big East campaign, though, and things could change.

Big Ten

When Nebraska restructured Fred Hoiberg's contract in 2022, it seemed like the first step toward a parting of ways in 2023. But he still had an eight-figure guarantee if he was fired, and the Cornhuskers finished 2022-23 on a tear, winning six of eight games -- including five against teams in NCAA tournament contention or on the bubble -- to end up 16-16 overall and 9-11 in the Big Ten. This season's team will have to sustain that momentum. His buyout drops to $7 million on April 1.

Minnesota's Ben Johnson has been at the helm for only two seasons and is signed through 2027 -- but the Golden Gophers will have to show signs of improvement. They're 6-33 in league play over the past two seasons, 22-39 overall, finishing last in the league standings in both years. Johnson has more talent and more experience on his roster this season, but it will be an uphill battle in the Big Ten. He would be owed about $6 million were he to be fired in the spring.

Big 12

After a tumultuous start to the summer that saw Bob Huggins resign following a charge of driving under the influence, West Virginia went for the temporary solution, promoting assistant coach Josh Eilert to head coach. Athletic director Wren Baker did conduct a search for a permanent replacement before going with Eilert and is likely to continue looking with a wider candidate pool next spring.

UCF is moving up from the AAC to the Big 12 this season, and that could lead to some serious struggles for the Knights, who haven't finished above .500 in league play since 2019, the one time Johnny Dawkins got them to the NCAA tournament. In the four years since, Dawkins is 32-40 in AAC play. Things looked promising last season, with UCF starting 13-4 before going 4-9 the rest of the way. Dawkins signed a contract extension in 2019 through the 2024-25 campaign.

Pac-12

The league will once again be busy come coaching carousel time. A handful of coaches were on the hot seat last season, but only one school ended up making a move, with California replacing Mark Fox with Mark Madsen. Interestingly enough, Madsen was the perceived favorite at another Pac-12 school: Stanford, his alma mater. But the Cardinal opted not to make a move on Jerod Haase for the second season in a row. Athletic director Bernard Muir put out a statement at the end of 2021-22 making it clear Stanford needed to show signs of improvement. Then the Cardinal had their worst Pac-12 campaign since 2017, going 7-13 in the league and 14-19 overall in 2022-23. Haase has yet to reach an NCAA tournament since taking over in Palo Alto in 2016, but he does have some promising recruits entering the fold this season.

Mike Hopkins has been a staple on the hot seat the past few seasons since guiding Washington to a combined 9-29 in Pac-12 play in the 2020 and 2021 campaigns. The Huskies aren't looking like those teams right now, having gone 11-9 in the league in 2022 and 8-12 last season -- but they haven't sniffed the NCAA tournament since 2019, either. Hopkins' fully guaranteed contract through 2025 made it prohibitive to fire him a couple of seasons ago, but the amount remaining after this season is down to about $3 million. It's worth noting Washington just hired a new athletic director, Troy Dannen from Tulane.

Things peaked for Wayne Tinkle and Oregon State in 2021, when the Beavers made a stunning run to the Elite Eight as a 12-seed. Tinkle then received a four-year contract extension through 2026-27, a fully guaranteed deal that will still have between $8 million and $9 million left after the upcoming season. The Beavers have struggled in the two years since that run, though, going 14-49 overall and 6-34 in Pac-12 play, and they're being picked to finish last in the league again.

Arizona State went to the NCAA tournament in March, which should take the heat off Bobby Hurley this season. Hurley also received a two-year contract extension at the end of 2022-23 that keeps him in Tempe through 2025-26. His previous deal would have run out after the upcoming season, which led to plenty of speculation in the spring.

SEC

The SEC could be fairly quiet, barring something shocking happening with John Calipari and Kentucky. It's hard to imagine Jerry Stackhouse being in danger at Vanderbilt, especially when he signed a contract extension before last season and then had the Commodores on the precipice of the NCAA tournament after leading them to wins in 10 of their final 12 games.

Who's up next?

Rick Pitino and Ed Cooley have been a couple of the mainstays on the "will they leave?" list -- and then they left Iona and Providence for St. John's and Georgetown in the spring, respectively. Micah Shrewsberry was another coach linked to seemingly every open job, and he made the move to Notre Dame. So whose names will be mentioned on the coaching carousel next spring?

If any blue-blood or blue-blood-adjacent jobs open up, expect Kansas State's Jerome Tang and Missouri's Dennis Gates to be named. Both were briefly mentioned with the Texas job last spring. That said, both also signed lucrative new contracts in the offseason, with Tang signing a seven-year deal that will pay him at least $3 million per year and Gates locked in through 2029 with an annual salary of at least $4 million. Tang's buyout next spring is $6 million, while Gates' increased to more than $25 million a few months ago. In other words, Gates isn't going anywhere -- and given the way Tang and Kansas State have embraced each other, he probably isn't either.

The two names everyone will also be watching after last season are Florida Atlantic's Dusty May and Charleston's Pat Kelsey. May guided FAU on a stunning run to the Final Four, where it lost on a buzzer-beater to San Diego State. The Owls went 35-4 overall and brought all five starters back for this season. May did, however, sign a 10-year contract extension in April and seems content in Boca Raton. Meanwhile, Kelsey led Charleston to a 31-4 season with an NCAA tournament appearance after opening 2022-23 with 21 wins in the Cougars' first 22 games. He's recruiting at a high level and has gone to three NCAA tournaments at two different schools (he won three Big South tournaments at Winthrop).

In the next tier of guys who might make the jump to a high-major program would be the likes of Colgate's Matt Langel, Drake's Darian DeVries, Furman's Bob Richey, Princeton's Mitch Henderson and Tulane's Ron Hunter -- along with some potential breakout options like Hofstra's Speedy Claxton, UNC Wilmington's Takayo Siddle and Youngstown State's Jerrod Calhoun. Langel has been to four NCAA tournaments in the past five years; DeVries has won 78 games in the past three seasons; Richey and Furman went to the NCAA tournament last season and upset Virginia; Henderson is coming off a Sweet 16 run with 15-seed Princeton; and Hunter had Tulane finish third in the AAC last season -- he also has taken two other programs to the NCAA tournament. Meanwhile, Claxton led Hofstra to a share of the CAA regular-season title, Siddle and UNCW have won 51 games in the past two years and Calhoun has leaned into the transfer portal and NIL era and also led Youngstown State to the Horizon League regular-season title in 2022-23.

In the same tier, there are another five coaches who tick a lot of boxes -- high-major experience, successful mid-major head coach, links to high-major openings in the past: UC Santa Barbara's Joe Pasternack, Colorado State's Niko Medved, Ohio's Jeff Boals, UAB's Andy Kennedy and Northern Kentucky's Darrin Horn.

Two wild-card names could be Northwest Missouri State's Ben McCollum and G League Ignite's Jason Hart. McCollum has achieved remarkable success at the Division II level, while Hart has only improved his reputation since taking over the Ignite team a few seasons ago.

Some other names to watch in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic include Norfolk State's Robert Jones, Vermont's John Becker, St. Bonaventure's Mark Schmidt, Yale's James Jones, Fordham's Keith Urgo and Merrimack's Joe Gallo.

The Southeast and South in general have seen many of their top names make jumps in recent years, but Liberty's Ritchie McKay, Morehead State's Preston Spradlin, Samford's Bucky McMillan, UNC Asheville's Mike Morrell, North Carolina Central's LeVelle Moton, Jacksonville's Jordan Mincy, Belmont's Casey Alexander, James Madison's Mark Byington and Alcorn State's Landon Bussie deserve mentions.

Out West, San José State's Tim Miles, South Dakota State's Eric Henderson, Eastern Washington's David Riley, Seattle U's Chris Victor, Portland's Shantay Legans, Cal State Fullerton's Dedrique Taylor, Loyola Marymount's Stan Johnson and UC Irvine's Russell Turner will be linked to jobs.

The Midwest doesn't have a ton of potential openings, but Kent State's Rob Senderoff, Toledo's Tod Kowalczyk, Bradley's Brian Wardle, Milwaukee's Bart Lundy, SEMO's Brad Korn and Wright State's Scott Nagy could garner looks.