Coaching Carousel 2025

[hskr4life]

3 hours ago, Nebrasketball1979 said:

Morale of this story...when we need to hire another basketball coach, use Drake's search firm or beg their AD for advice.

 

Or just hire whoever Drake hires...

[HuskerFever]

19 minutes ago, Dead Dog Alley said:

When you're the worst major college program in history, your soul is going for bargain basement rates

 

Still don't agree with the blanket statement of "worst major college program in history."

 

Not that it's good at all to be even in the conversation for that title. Nonetheless.

 

Rutgers, Washington State, and Northwestern all have the same or fewer NCAA appearances as we do. We've also had some of our great years as a program when only the conference champions qualified for the Big Dance.

 

Feels wrong even arguing that we're not the worst, because it's even up for debate. Sad.

[Jacob Bigelow]

The Big Ten's cast of coaches going from Mike Woodson, Fran McCaffrey, and Ben Johnson to Darian DeVries, Ben McCollum, and Niko Medved is a vast improvement. 

 

Especially McCollum and Medved. No slight to DeVries, that dude is a winner, but the IU fishbowl may chew him up and spit him out. 

Edited March 24 by Jacob Bigelow

[Huskerpapa]

1 minute ago, Jacob Bigelow said:

The Big Ten's cast of coaches going from Mike Woodson, Fran McCaffrey, and Ben Johnson to Darian DeVries, Ben McCollum, and Niko Medved is a vast improvement. 

 

Especially McCollum and Medved

Perhaps.  Time will tell.  Obviously, if they get the financial support,  they will be in a better position to buy players.  

[thrasher31]

4 minutes ago, Jacob Bigelow said:

The Big Ten's cast of coaches going from Mike Woodson, Fran McCaffrey, and Ben Johnson to Darian DeVries, Ben McCollum, and Niko Medved is a vast improvement. 

 

Especially McCollum and Medved

I'm a big big big medved fan. He's kinda getting pushed to the side because it's Minnesota, but he can really fucking coach. He's produced some VERY GOOD players and teams at CSU in his time there. McCollums resume speaks for itself, but I don't want to scoff at medved at all

[OmahaHusker]

7 minutes ago, Jacob Bigelow said:

The Big Ten's cast of coaches going from Mike Woodson, Fran McCaffrey, and Ben Johnson to Darian DeVries, Ben McCollum, and Niko Medved is a vast improvement. 

 

Especially McCollum and Medved

 

Feel like all 3 match up well with their respective destinations. 

 

Indiana is still living in Bobby Knight era in their head and want a dog that wins. Devries is definitely a dog. We'll see if the wins follow.

 

McCollum likes to be left alone and doesn't require a lot of NIL for the players he's looking for. Great for Iowa. 

 

Medved is the Minnesota alumnus coming back to make them respectful in the B1G again, and has the chops to do it. 

[Jacob Bigelow]

12 minutes ago, Huskerpapa said:

Perhaps.  Time will tell.  Obviously, if they get the financial support,  they will be in a better position to buy players.  

Financial support will never be an issue at Indiana.

 

Medved will be willing to do the grassroots stuff needed to drum up support at Minnesota, have been told that the hockey side of the booster base there loves him and they'd be willing to crossover to hoops.

 

McCollum at Iowa will be the interesting one with the financial side. 

[Jacob Bigelow]

5 minutes ago, OmahaHusker said:

 

Feel like all 3 match up well with their respective destinations. 

 

Indiana is still living in Bobby Knight era in their head and want a dog that wins. Devries is definitely a dog. We'll see if the wins follow.

 

McCollum likes to be left alone and doesn't require a lot of NIL for the players he's looking for. Great for Iowa. 

 

Medved is the Minnesota alumnus coming back to make them respectful in the B1G again, and has the chops to do it. 

Completely and totally agree on all three assessments. 

[Jacob Bigelow]

12 minutes ago, thrasher31 said:

I'm a big big big medved fan. He's kinda getting pushed to the side because it's Minnesota, but he can really fucking coach. He's produced some VERY GOOD players and teams at CSU in his time there. McCollums resume speaks for itself, but I don't want to scoff at medved at all

Have been lucky enough to have direct ties to both him and the CSU program, so I've been able to see how he operates up close. I cannot say enough good about him. 

[HB]

We are so screwed.

[HuskerFever]

 

[hskr4life]

Appear to be great hires on paper, but we of all fanbases should know from personal experience that it isn't always as easy as it appears on paper. I'm sure when the rest of the B1G saw that we were hiring Fred Hoiberg, they said some of the same stuff. No one was probably expecting his first few years to go the way they did. We'll see how the wins translate -- especially at Minnesota and Iowa. 

[Cazzie22]

Minnesota would have been a tournament team had Elijah Hawkins(Texas Tech) and Pharrell Payne(Texas A&M) remained in Minneapolis. Big reason why Johnson lost his job.

[hskr4life]

12 minutes ago, Cazzie22 said:

Minnesota would have been a tournament team had Elijah Hawkins(Texas Tech) and Pharrell Payne(Texas A&M) remained in Minneapolis. Big reason why Johnson lost his job.

 

One has to wonder if Minny could have kept them had they ponied up the money they are supposedly giving Niko.

[hhcmatt]

57 minutes ago, hskr4life said:

One has to wonder if Minny could have kept them had they ponied up the money they are supposedly giving Niko.

 

No. Ben Johnson was a Minnesota guy but Minnesota was his first head coaching job and he wasn't necessarily hired for his coaching acumen as much as his perceived ability to recruit kids from Minnesota that were leaving the state.  Unfortunately for him, the scope of college basketball shifted and his ability to recruit in the state didn't matter as much as $$ and I'm sure there were always boosters who never believed in the guy in the first place. 

 

If Minnesota raises more NIL money for basketball, it will simply be because more people believe in Nico, an established head coach, than in Ben. 

[Chuck Taylor]

The term "sleeping giant" gets thrown around, but Minnesota is for sure. Nearly 3 times our population with only 2 D1 programs in the state, and one of them was D2 until a couple years ago. 

 

I don't know why they haven't made the next step, but there is a ton of talent in the state and big $$$ in the Twin Cities area with 17 Fortune 500 companies. If everyone gets behind Nico, they'll do very well.

 

 

[HuskerFever]

 

[Cazzie22]

I watched Ben McCollam’s press conference.  Impressive. Iowa may have a good one but winning the press conference doesn’t necessarily mean winning on the court.  He will have a very good point guard.

[HuskerFever]

3 hours ago, HuskerFever said:

 

 

The carousel keeps turning...

 

 

Edited March 26 by HuskerFever

[hhcmatt]

Well Pitino is going to Xavier, can we stop posting the fake sportscaster account tweets

 

 

[hhcmatt]

 

 

[HuskerFever]

34 minutes ago, hhcmatt said:

 

 

The Francon meter now goes from one to Penn.

[hhcmatt]

31 minutes ago, HuskerFever said:

 

The Francon meter now goes from one to Penn.

 

He actually was born in Philly and graduated from Penn. 

[AuroranHusker]

That seems like a good spot for McCaffrey, who I've heard is a good dude off the court. Good for him to go back to his roots.

 

[Navin R. Johnson]