By this time last year, one of the biggest jobs in college basketball was already open. UCLA fired head coach Steve Alford on New Year's Eve and got the coaching carousel spinning earlier than expected. The Bruins wouldn't fill the job until they hired Mick Cronin the day after the national championship game, but the vacancy in Westwood dominated the hot seat conversation for those three months.
We're unlikely to have anything resembling that this season. In fact, the hot seat has arguably grown smaller since the start of the season. Back in October, the theme for the 2020 hot seat was shaping up to be "Shaka and the ACC." Two months into the season, that hasn't really changed.
Texas
The big question surrounding this year's hot seat is Shaka Smart's status at Texas. That was the case entering the season and it remains that way. To recap: Smart has zero NCAA tournament wins since taking over at Texas in 2015, he entered the season 10 games below .500 in Big 12 play and the Longhorns have generally underachieved relative to their talent. That said, the talent has been there in Austin. Smart has brought in three first-round NBA draft picks and nearly 20 ESPN 100 prospects.
Heading into the season, Texas was expected to reach the NCAA tournament. Four players who started at least 16 games returned from a year ago, and Smart was bringing in three ESPN 100 talents. As of now, the Longhorns have a lot of work to do to hear their name on Selection Sunday. They have three losses by 15-plus points to Baylor, Georgetown and Providence, just lost at home by 10 to Oklahoma on Wednesday night, and their lone remotely impressive win was at Purdue in early November.
Smart's contract is fully guaranteed, with three years and nearly $10 million remaining. One other wrinkle: There's always been talk that Smart could leave on his own and head to the ACC -- particularly to Clemson, where he spent two seasons as an assistant coach. More on the Tigers shortly. One other issue industry sources have brought up is a lack of elite candidates for Texas. Chris Beard seems content at Texas Tech, and Billy Donovan, everyone's white whale, has the Oklahoma City Thunder comfortably in playoff position.
ACC
If there's one conference to dictate coaching carousel movement come March, here's the one to watch. There are four coaches in some level of trouble entering the final two months of the season, and none has covered himself in glory so far this season.
Josh Pastner and Georgia Tech's season got off to a rough start when it was announced in September that the Yellow Jackets were banned from the NCAA tournament due to NCAA violations. And that has carried over onto the court, where Tech has ACC road wins over NC State and North Carolina -- and a 5-8 record outside those two games. This would be four years without an NCAA tournament appearance for Pastner and potentially four years of below-.500 ACC records.
Wake Forest has looked very solid at times this season, and Danny Manning might have done the most to cool off his seat of any of the ACC quartet. The Demon Deacons have wins over Xavier, Davidson and Pittsburgh. Manning's contract is reportedly fully guaranteed through 2025, though, meaning new Wake Forest athletic director John Currie would have to pay upward of eight figures to part ways with Manning.
Like Manning, Boston College's Jim Christian has created a little bit of optimism in Chestnut Hill. The Eagles opened the season with a win over Wake Forest, own a road win at Notre Dame and also took down Virginia on Tuesday night. As of Wednesday night, they were tied for second in the ACC! But they're still only 9-6 and are the worst team in the ACC by some distance, according to metric-based rankings. Entering the season, Christian was 18-72 in ACC play since taking over in 2014.
Clemson is perhaps the most intriguing, not just because of the Shaka Smart connection. Brad Brownell and the Tigers reached the Sweet 16 just two seasons ago and were on the bubble last season. They've finished below .500 in ACC play once since 2015. And Brownell signed a contract extension in the summer of 2018 that keeps him through 2024. But the whispers remain, and a 7-7 start (1-3 in the ACC) hasn't quieted them.
Elsewhere on the hot seat ...
Seat cooling off
Penn State forward Seth Lundy lobs a pass up to Mike Watkins, who finishes with a two-handed jam.
Pat Chambers is in his ninth season at Penn State, and he has yet to guide the Nittany Lions to the NCAA tournament. But he has them off to a 12-3 start, in the Top 25 and on track to end that streak. Expect Chambers back in State College next season.
DePaul opened Big East play with back-to-back losses, but the Blue Demons are still 12-3 with wins over Iowa, Texas Tech and Minnesota and in the NCAA tournament conversation. Given that Dave Leitao was in negotiations with the school over an extension through the 2023-24 season before the campaign even started, it's hard to see him being on the hot seat for the next two months.
In the preseason, we said that Stanford's Jerod Haase was at least a year away from being in serious trouble. With the Cardinal starting 12-2 and sitting comfortably in most projected NCAA tournament brackets, Haase has to be safe.
Work to do
I think it's more likely that Frank Martin leaves South Carolina for another job rather than gets fired, but his seat has undoubtedly gotten warmer. The Gamecocks own road wins at Virginia and Clemson this season but also lost at home to Stetson and Boston University. Both KenPom and the BPI have them among the bottom three teams in the SEC. Martin has been to only one NCAA tournament since taking over in Columbia -- but South Carolina made the Final Four that season. The Gamecocks have also finished 11-7 or better in the SEC three of the past four years, and Martin is under contract for another three seasons.
It was debatable whether SMU's Tim Jankovich or Tulsa's Frank Haith was truly in danger entering the season, but neither was all that comfortable -- and both have stayed the course since the season began. SMU is 12-2, but the Mustangs' best wins are over UCF and Georgia State, so it's easy to remain unconvinced. If SMU were to make a move, it would be a highly desirable job given its facilities and support. As for Haith, Tulsa really struggled to close out 2019, losing four of its last five games entering AAC play and then losing by 31 at Cincinnati on Wednesday night. Haith reportedly signed a contract extension -- and took a pay cut -- after last season. Industry sources have constantly harped on the budget issues within the athletic department, however.
Six other things on my mind ...
1. At the midseason point, there is no clear-cut leader for the Wooden Award. But there should be a favorite for Coach of the Year: Butler's LaVall Jordan. The Bulldogs were picked to finish eighth in the Big East, with the voters having them closer to last place than seventh place. As we head into the final two months of the season, Butler is 14-1, with the lone loss coming by one point at Baylor.
The Bulldogs are a 1-seed in Joe Lunardi's latest Bracketology, No. 5 at KenPom and No. 7 in the BPI -- and they're arguably the favorite in the Big East.
Other candidates at this point include San Diego State's Brian Dutcher and Auburn's Bruce Pearl, the leaders of the two remaining unbeaten teams; West Virginia's Bob Huggins and Florida State's Leonard Hamilton, whose teams are borderline top-10 nationally; and Dayton's Anthony Grant, who has his team in the top 20 despite not being pegged as a top-two team in the Atlantic 10.
2. BYU has a huge chance at Saint Mary's on Thursday night. The Cougars aren't getting a ton of national attention right now, but here's something that might raise some eyebrows: If you just look from Dec. 1 onward, BYU has the seventh-best adjusted efficiency margin in the country, according to BartTorvik.com.
Why Dec. 1? Well, star forward Yoeli Childs was suspended for the first nine games of the season and has only played in BYU's last seven games. The Cougars are 6-1 with Childs in the fold, with the lone loss coming at Utah in his first game back. A win over the Gaels on the road on Thursday would establish BYU as the No. 2 team in the West Coast Conference and also boost its potential at-large hopes.
3. There are still 12 ESPN 100 prospects -- including five five-star prospects -- uncommitted in the class of 2020, and there hasn't been a ton of momentum toward any imminent decisions following No. 6 Jalen Suggs announcement last week that he'll be attending Gonzaga.
But the biggest movement behind the scenes concerns Michigan. The Wolverines, fresh off landing frontcourt pieces Hunter Dickinson and Terrance Williams in late December and early January, are gathering momentum for five-star guard Joshua Christopher. Christopher took an official visit to Ann Arbor in November and could make a return trip before the season ends. Arizona State and Missouri both have family connections to Christopher, while UCLA was picking up buzz over the past couple months. But Juwan Howard has positioned the Wolverines squarely in the mix.
Michigan has also emerged as a threat for five-star forward Greg Brown. The Wolverines weren't thought to be involved in his recruitment, but Brown recently scheduled an official visit to Ann Arbor for early February. Texas is the hometown school, while Memphis, Kentucky and Auburn are all in the mix as well. But Howard getting Brown on campus is a sign that Michigan is making a push.
4. A year ago at this time, Marquette's Markus Howard had established himself as perhaps the best show in college basketball. It feels as if the buzz has quieted somewhat -- but Howard is arguably better across the board when it comes to scoring. He's averaging more points per game, shooting better from 3-point range and is more efficient offensively than a year ago. Marquette is only one game worse than it was after 15 games last season and is only two spots lower in KenPom's rankings after 15 games.
Markus Howard goes off for 51, a day after going for 40, in Marquette's dominant 101-79 win over USC.
Consider this your periodic reminder that Howard is still awesome and still arguably the must-watch player in college basketball.
5. While Evansville has fallen off since beating Kentucky, losing three of four, Stephen F. Austin -- the other early-season giant killer -- looks like the clear-cut best team in the Southland Conference. Entering Wednesday night, the Lumberjacks were 13-2 overall, 4-0 in the conference -- and the lone losses have come on the road at Rutgers and Alabama.
Now in his fourth season at the helm and favored to go to his second straight NCAA tournament, Kyle Keller has continued some of the same trends that led the Lumberjacks to so much success under previous head coach Brad Underwood: offensive rebounding prowess and forcing turnovers. Keller's team, which forced Duke into its worst turnover game of the season, leads the nation in defensive turnover percentage and is among the top 25 schools nationally in offensive rebounding percentage.
6. While there's no UCLA-caliber job open right now, there are currently at least four -- and as many as six -- permanent head-coaching vacancies. Three programs entered the season with interim head coaches: Idaho, which tabbed Zac Claus after terminating Don Verlin for cause in June; IUPUI, which replaced Jason Gardner with Byron Rimm after Gardner resigned in August; and Northern Arizona, which turned to Shane Burcar in June after Jack Murphy left for Arizona.
Central Arkansas head coach Russ Pennell took a leave of absence in December and then announced earlier this week he would not return to the Bears. Anthony Boone has been the interim head coach.
Two more coaches are on indefinite suspension: Evansville's Walter McCarty and North Carolina A&T's Jay Joyner. McCarty was placed on administrative leave in late December, pending a Title IX investigation, while Joyner was suspended indefinitely shortly after Christmas.