Grading the SEC coaching hires

Adam Ford

9 Apr, 2022

Grading the SEC coaching hires

We’re back to talk about… not Arkansas.

Almost half of the SEC went out and got a new coach this offseason, making this the busiest offseason for coaches in the SEC ever. The significant investment that the SEC put into basketball a few years ago has started to pay off, as Arkansas, Auburn, Alabama, and Tennessee are now pushing Kentucky as consistently strong basketball programs. The SEC as a whole is much, much better than it was back in the mid-2010s. Now the schools that have fallen behind are playing catchup.

After a few years of hiring retreads (Rick Barnes, Frank Martin, Tom Crean) and NBA guys (Jerry Stackhouse, Avery Johnson), the zeitgeist has shifted towards exciting, young coaches from mid-majors. Five of the six new hires coached at mid-majors last year and won their conference regular season title and/or reached the NCAA Tournament.

So, is Eric Musselman worried that these new coaches are going to upend the conference’s top programs? Well, I agree with USA Today’s Dan Wolken:

None of these are obviously terrible hires, but it would not be surprising if none of them ever win an SEC title during their tenure.

Grading the new hires

Let’s discuss and grade the new hires, and then rank all the conference’s coaches.

Chris Jans, Mississippi State

Grade: B+

Mississippi State might be the worst job in the SEC. It’s at least bottom-3. Mississippi isn’t a big basketball state, and the Bulldogs have to split the limited in-state talent with Ole Miss. The facilities aren’t great and the fanbase isn’t large. Ben Howland managed only one NCAA Tournament and went 59-67 in SEC play and I thought he did a good job. So the Bulldogs needed a good hire to justify firing him and I think they got it in Jans.

Jans, a longtime junior college coach, was a rising star at Bowling Green back in 2015 when he was fired after some incredibly inappropriate behavior at a bar. After a couple years on Gregg Marshall’s staff at Wichita State, he was hired at New Mexico State. In five seasons, his Aggies finished in 1st place in the WAC four times, making three NCAA Tournaments (and it would have been four if not for the COVID year in 2020). Obviously, they beat UConn in the first round this year and gave the Hogs all they could handle in the second round.

Jans succeeded at New Mexico State using Division I castoffs, like Teddy Allen. He gets the most out of his talent, which is exactly what Mississippi State needs, as they won’t be pulling in top-5 recruiting classes anytime soon. His teams are fundamentally sound and Jans is able to adjust his system to fit what he has. I don’t think he’ll have the Bulldogs competing for SEC titles anytime soon but I expect them to be competitive from day one and be in the mix for an NCAA Tournament bid most years. That’s about all you can ask for in Starkville.

Todd Golden, Florida

Grade: B-

The grade here is a compromise. Golden himself is more of a B or even B+ coach, but for Florida, this is a C+ hire. It wasn’t that long ago that Florida won back-to-back national titles. They could be pushing Arkansas for second-best job in SEC basketball — as late as a couple years ago, many could reasonably argue that they were ahead of the Hogs. But they don’t seem to realize it, and this hire reflects that.

Golden is a good coach. He spent a couple seasons on Auburn’s staff as an assistant, so there’s some familiarity with the SEC. He’s 36 and has been a head coach at one school for all of three seasons. The San Francisco Dons had a nice team this year — 10-6 in WCC play, good for 4th place — but he went 23-22 in the WCC in his tenure. USF got an at-large bid largely because the conference as a whole — not just USF but also Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s, BYU, and Santa Clara — was exceptionally strong.

Golden has been pitched as a very modern, analytics-driven coach. He makes a bunch of decisions that reflect that: for example, his teams always try to get a 2-for-1 at the end of the first half and will even intentionally foul in order to do so. Even wilder is at the end of the game: you’ve heard of intentionally fouling up 3, but what about intentionally fouling when you are up by only 2? Ken Pomeroy wrote about it back in 2020, but the Dons actually did it this year against Portland: up 2 with six seconds left, they fouled a bad free throw shooter. He missed the second and San Francisco won. Wild stuff.

That stuff is all fun and makes you look smart, but can Golden actually win at this level? Can he recruit? Can he develop five-star talent? The jury is still out.

Dennis Gates, Missouri

Grade: B-

While I think Jans and Golden are probably slightly better coaches than Gates, I think Mizzou got a bigger upgrade in coaching quality with Gates replacing Cuonzo Martin. And with Mizzou being a decent job in the SEC pecking order, it wouldn’t surprise me if this ends up being looked on as one of the better hires this cycle.

Gates spent eight seasons on Leonard Hamilton’s staff at Florida State before winning shares of two Horizon League titles at Cleveland State. Like Golden, Gates has only been a head coach for three seasons at one school, but he went 31-21 in Horizon League play at a school that was 16-38 in the three years before his arrival.

Gates’ teams at Cleveland State were hyper-aggressive and fun to watch: they pushed the tempo (48th in average possession length), got in transition (35th in transition scoring rate), crashed the offensive glass (12th), and got to the free throw line (17th in free throw rate) and the rim (6th in rim share). His defense forced a lot of turnovers (27th) and defended well at the rim (80th in FG% defense at the rim).

Once Gates gets the athletes in place — which may take a while, as the Hogs swiping Trevon Brazile was really not what the talent-lacking Tigers needed — Mizzou won’t be easy to beat.

Mike White, Georgia

Grade: C+

I feel like Georgia should be better at basketball than this. They’re near Atlanta and have access to a lot of talent. Their only major in-state competition is Georgia Tech, and the Yellow Jackets aren’t a strong program right now. But Florida fans were sick of Mike White and happy to see him off to Georgia.

This is an especially odd hire after the Bulldogs just floundered with Tom Crean, another semi-successful coach who didn’t win enough at a more prestigious basketball school. Still, White was 72-52 in SEC play at Florida with zero losing SEC seasons. So I’m grading on a curve here, as Georgia is coming off a 1-17 SEC season and has probably been the worst SEC team over the last decade-plus. Is White going to win big at Georgia? No. Will he have the Bulldogs regularly competing for NCAA Tournament bids? Also no. Is this a strange hire because Georgia had nothing to lose by swinging for a fences with a young up-and-comer? Yes. But I still don’t think this is the worst hire of the cycle.

Matt McMahon, LSU

Grade: C+

Part of the grade here is that LSU might be about to be destroyed by the NCAA, although I’ll believe it when I see it. The Tigers deserve extra punishment for holding onto Will Wade for so long despite obvious evidence of his cheating… and for what? One Sweet Sixteen, that happened while Wade was suspended?

LSU has zero returning players and lost every 2022 and 2023 recruit after firing Wade and hiring McMahon. This is going to be a tough journey. McMahon is probably a good coach; after all, he went 93-31 in Ohio Valley Conference play with three NCAA Tournament bids in seven years. But Murray State was already a mid-major powerhouse when McMahon took over: Steve Prohm went 54-10 in OVC play with four conference titles in four seasons before McMahon got there.

So the challenge ahead of McMahon is something he’s not proven he can handle. Someone like Jans would actually have been a better fit for this job.

Lamont Paris, South Carolina

Grade: C-

This isn’t a terrible hire, but to me it’s the worst of the cycle. Paris spent seven seasons as an assistant at Wisconsin before spending five seasons as Chattanooga’s head coach. The Mocs pushed Illinois to the brink as a 13-seed before losing in the NCAA Tournament’s first round.

There are a lot of holes in Paris’s resume. Paris was highly regarded as an assistant at Wisconsin, but I’m not sure how well that translates to SEC basketball, especially when most of the other hires at least have strong regional ties. And he was just 43-45 in SoCon play at Chattanooga, with the 2022 season being his team’s only time to finish better than 4th in the conference. Malachi Smith was a bonafide star for the Mocs, but a big key to their success fell into their lap: former Kansas forward Silvio de Sousa, last seen getting booted from the Jayhawks program for picking up a chair during an on-court brawl, gave the Mocs a major-conference big in a mid-major conference.

Paris might prove all the doubters wrong and get things going, but I don’t think this is an upgrade over fired coach Frank Martin.

Ranking the SEC’s coaches

  1. John Calipari, Kentucky. Yeah, he’s still here for now, resting on the weight of his laurels. He’s got a national championship at Kentucky. But he’s absolutely not “the Saban of SEC basketball” and one more disappointing year will boot him from the top of my list.
  2. Bruce Pearl, Auburn. He’s not likeable at all, but he delivered results in Knoxville and has delivered them in Auburn. This year’s late-season swoon wasn’t a great look, but the Tigers exceeded expectations nonetheless. They’ll need to avoid a letdown year in 2023.
  3. Eric Musselman, Arkansas. A Final Four run in 2023 might be enough to push Muss to number-one on this list, as his combination of offseason hype and NCAA Tournament success makes it exciting to be a fan. But early January struggles have allowed the Hogs to sneak up on opponents for the last two years: now, the target is on the Hogs’ back.
  4. Rick Barnes, Tennessee (regular season). Even with Kennedy Chandler off to the NBA, the Vols should be strong again in 2023. But for what? Hang the SEC tournament banner, I guess, but the constant poking at Barnes over his lack of March success (I’m doing it right here) really will start to drain Tennessee’s momentum in time.
  5. Nate Oats, Alabama. Oats is a dogmatic system coach, and it cost him in 2022, as the Tide struggled to defend and make 3-pointers. I completely agree with a Tweet I saw that worried that Oats was pursuing the Shaka Smart strategy of abandoning your famous system in order to stockpile the most talented players you can. The Tide can sign all the 5-stars they want (and that’s what they’re doing), but if those 5-stars can’t do the things Oats is known for — shooting 3s and getting to the rim — then Alabama isn’t going anywhere fast.
  6. Buzz Williams, Texas A&M. It’s probably taking Buzz longer than it should, but the momentum is starting to build in College Station. He’s 65-71 in conference play at A&M and Virginia Tech combined, so it’s really time for the hype and big paychecks to start paying off. I think Buzz is a good coach, and after a run to the NIT title game and several key players returning, he needs to start actually showing it.
  7. Chris Jans, Mississippi State. I’ll slot the first new hire in here. Jans doesn’t have to have the Bulldogs as the 7th-best team in the conference to hold on to this title, but if he can keep the Bulldogs out of the conference basement, he’ll have done his job well.
  8. Todd Golden, Florida. Golden has a good shot to move up on this list if Florida does well, but I still think the Gators could have done better in this hire. Golden is an upgrade over Mike White, but not a big one.
  9. Dennis Gates, Missouri. Gates probably needs some time to get Mizzou turned out after the talent drain at the end of the Martin tenure, but it would not surprise me if eventually gets things moving in a positive direction.
  10. Jerry Stackhouse, Vanderbilt. I was about ready to call Stackhouse the latest NBA-to-college failure, but the ‘Dores pulled off a nice season, going 7-11 in the SEC and reaching the third round of the NIT. That bought Stackhouse some much-needed job security. If Scotty Pippen Jr. returns to school, then Vandy might actually compete for an NCAA Tournament bid. Can Stack keep it rolling after the Pippen era ends? I’m not optimistic, but he’s earned the right to try and prove me wrong.
  11. Mike White, Georgia. I graded White’s hire generously because I do think that White is an upgrade over Tom Crean, but I just don’t see him making Georgia all that competitive.
  12. Matt McMahon, LSU. I’m not sure how much we’ll learn about McMahon as a coach given the NCAA troubles that LSU is likely facing, but if he makes LSU competitive soon, he will have earned a higher ranking.
  13. Kermit Davis, Ole Miss. Mississippi State had a quick-ish trigger with Ben Howland (.468 SEC win percentage), which makes Ole Miss deciding to hold for another year on Davis (.417 SEC win percentage) interesting, given the tit-for-tat those two schools usually engage in. I think Davis is a worse coach than Howland and Frank Martin, who were both fired. The Rebels’ 2022 class is ranked 5th in the SEC but includes only one four-star. I doubt this lasts much longer.
  14. Lamont Paris, South Carolina. This was the most uninspiring hire of the cycle and South Carolina isn’t the best job in the SEC anyway. It can go only up from here for Paris, who’s replacing a guy who took the Gamecocks to their only Final Four.
  15. Rick Barnes, Tennessee (NCAA Tournament). LOL.