Top 5 Mid-Major Coaching Hires
The Coaching Carousel this season has been HOT and the NCAA Tournament hasn't even finished. Check out our Top 5 Mid-Major Head Coaching hire list.
The NCAA Tournament isn’t even over yet and we’ve already seen over 50 schools with coaching changes. Some being fired, some taking jobs at Power 5 schools like Danny Sprinkle, Pat Kelsey, and Dusty May, and other’s retiring. The list will continue to grow, however, this shows with the schedule of the transfer portal window and the introduction of NIL, schools want to waste no time in finding their replacements.
Let’s walkthrough some of the top hires at mid-major schools thus far. (List is updated as of 04/03/24.)
Preston Spradlin - James Madison
Preston Spradlin knows how to win with minimal resources. Spradlin took over in the middle of the 2016-2017 season, then proceeded to have to rebuild a floundering Morehead State team. In his first full season, the team went 8-21, then followed up with just 13 wins in each of the next two seasons. The tide started turning in the 2020-2021 season where the Eagles finished 23-8 and went to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2011. Following that year, the Eagles would win at least 22 games in each season, finishing 23-8, 23-11, 22-12, and 26-9 in the last four seasons.
Credit Spradlin’s recruiting for the successful results, some of his recruits include:
Johni Broome - Auburn Star and NBA Draft Pick
Riley Minix - An NAIA transfer who averaged 20.9 points, 9.7 rebounds, and 2.2 assists per game this season.
Jordan Lathon - UTEP & Milwaukee transfer who averaged 15.6 points, 6 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game this season.
In the age of NIL money, it’s hard for small schools like Morehead State to compete for recruits against larger schools. Their Men’s Basketball Athletic Budget for 2023-2024 was $640,599 per the school’s resources. For comparison, Spradlin’s new school James Madison spent $3,892,786 on their Men’s Basketball Team during the 2023-2024 season.
Spradlin also knows how to win, look at some of their losses this season to power schools. The Eagles played Alabama, Purdue, Illinois, Penn State, and Indiana. They had Indiana on the ropes at Assembly Hall where they should’ve won the game, however fell 69-68 to the Hoosiers.
Combine Spradlin’s winning culture, great recruiting, with his new increased budget and the James Madison Dukes are going to be right back to their winning ways.
Ben McCollum - Drake
I started writing this article last week and held off on finishing it so we could add Ben McCollum to the list. McCollum has been a highly successful coach at Northwest Missouri State (Division II). Since 2017, he’s won four national championships and they’ve won their last 11 conference championships. Since their insane run had started in 2017, they are 253-21 overall…let that sink in. McCollum’s overall record at the school is 394-91, and they only missed the Division II tournament 3 times during his tenure with the team.
Needless to say, McCollum knows how to win. He’s been highly sought after with Mid-Major schools for the last few years, in fact many thought he would immediately take the Missouri State job after Dana Ford was dismissed. However, McCollum reported that he was being picky in his choice at which school to coach. After several different opportunities at the Division 1 level, McCollum said the Drake was “A perfect fit.” The Iowa native was announced as Drake’s new head coach this week, ensuring that Drake will not flounder for long in the Missouri Valley.
He was able to recruit Division 1 talent at Division II, lets look at Trevor Hudgins. In his four years at Northwest Missouri State, he averaged 20.4 points, 2.5 rebounds, and 5 assists per game. Following graduation, he signed a 2-way contract with the Houston Rockets to become the first player in school history to sign with an NBA team. Hudgins appeared in 5 games, average 1.8 points and 0.6 assists. During the majority of his rookie season, he played for the Rio Grande Valley Vipers where he averaged 20 points, 6.1 assists. and 2.5 rebounds per game in the G-League.
Developing NBA talent at the Division II level is an impressive story. Congratulations to Drake on an excellent hire.
Chris Mack - College of Charleston
Chris Mack was rumored at numerous schools prior to signing on with the College of Charleston following Pat Kelsey’s departure to Louisville. Ironic isn’t it? Chris Mack was fired at Louisville in his most recent job and now Charleston’s former coach is heading to Louisville and now Mack is heading to Charleston.
Mack took over Xavier in 2009 and immediately finished with a 26-9 record and a Sweet 16 appearance. In his 9 years at Xavier, he went to the NCAA Tournament 8 times, including 3 Sweet 16 appearances and one Elite 8 appearance in 2017. In those 9 seasons, he finished with a 215-97 record. At Louisville, he had immediate success as well going 20-14 in his first year and 24-7 in 2019-2020 before the NCAA Tournament was cancelled due to Covid. It all came crashing down after being suspended and then ultimately terminated due to violating Louisville’s guidelines. We’re not going to dive too deep here, but there was no question that Mack was going to reappear in the coaching ranks again and now just two years later, he’s back.
Mack is a tremendous coach and recruiter. In 2015, Mack landed 2 5 Star Recruits and 3 4 Star recruits, gearing up for what would be another run to the Sweet 16 in the following year. There is no doubt he’ll do the same at Charleston, which has saw plenty of success under Kelsey in which the Cougars finished 75-27 in the three years with him as head coach (58-12 in the last two years). There’s been some rumors that Charleston might make a move to the Atlantic 10 following UMass’s departure to the MAC. There’s no concrete evidence of that, but regardless of whether they are in the CAA or the A10, Chris Mack will have the Cougars at the top.
Scott Nagy - Southern Illinois
The Missouri Valley has nailed some of the coaching hires thus far. Southern Illinois nabbed Scott Nagy from Wright State following the dismissal of Bryan Mullins. Nagy has been a head coach since 1995, coaching South Dakota State from 1995-2016, Wright State from 2016-2024, and now SIU. Once again, this is a guy that just knows how to win.
South Dakota State was Division II in the North Central Conference when Nagy took over in 1995. Within his first three seasons, he took the Jackrabbits to the NCAA Division II Sweet 16 all three years, finishing with a record of 75-13. Among the 9 seasons they were in Division II with Nagy as head coach, they went to the tournament 8 times, with 4 Sweet 16 appearances, and 2 Second Round appearances, finishing with an outstanding 193-59 record.
In 2004 the Jackrabbits moved to Division 1 and stayed independent until they joined the Summit league in 2007. It took a bit to get things going, but in 2010-2011, they started to turn things around and finished 19-12. This with the start of a dominating run, going 27-8 in the next season and 121-50 over the next 5 seasons with 3 NCAA Tournament Appearances, along with a CBI and NIT appearance.
In 2016, Nagy took over as Wright State’s head coach and immediately dominated going 20-12 in his first season. In 8 seasons, Nagy made the NCAA Tournament twice (would have been 3 had the NCAA Tournament not been cancelled in 2020) and a 167-92 record overall. The Horizon and Summit Leagues are two tough and unpredictable Mid-Major leagues. Nagy has won at the Division II level, managed a transition to Division 1 and has won in two tough Mid-Major conferences. Now he is ready to win in the Missouri Valley.
Jeremy Schulman - UT Martin
You probably haven’t heard much about this one, but Jeremy Schulman is a sneaky hire for UT Martin after Ryan Ridder took the Mercer job. Fun fact, Ridder coached at Daytona State College from 2013-2017 before taking over as the head coach at Bethune-Cookman in 2017. Daytona State plays in the same conference as Shulman’s last school.
Schulman coached at Eastern Florida State for 14 years where he finished with an incredible 346-107 record, including 5 NJCAA Tournament appearances. When he took over, they had won just 7 games in the year prior, so it’s clear that he knows how to build a program. It’s even more difficult to do this at the JUCO level because players are constantly leaving.
He is already familiar with recruiting Division 1 talent. Last year, Shulman nabbed three former Division 1 transfers in the Portal:
Luca Colceag from Montana State
Matus Malovec from Evansville
Noels Slivackis from Texas Rio-Grande Valley
There’s been several players enter and leave the Division 1 ranks with ties to Eastern Florida State, so Schulman will have no problem building a program at UT Martin in the Ohio Valley. This is our under-the-radar pick, so keep an eye on Schulman and the Skyhawks over the next couple of seasons.