You know what’s one of the least logical concepts in a sports-media culture filled with them? Assigning immediate “grades” before a player or coach has done a damn thing. We do it with the NFL and NBA drafts, we do it with coaching hirings.
I’ve never liked it. Sure, it gets attention/viewership/readership, but it’s not based in anything rational. (None other than Scott Van Pelt agrees with me.) But grading something after, you know, we have results to actually grade? That’s my jam. So here I am, back again, opting for the more patient and practical route on college basketball hirings.
As usual, I’m doing a four-years-later appraisal on power-conference coaches, which means the hiring cycle of 2021 is now up for inspection. (For previous report cards, here are my four-years-later grades from hirings in 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2020.) The 2021 carousel was the first cycle after the COVID-stunted 2020 year, and it’s in this group where college basketball’s coaching turnover began a drastic national makeover that’s been the most volatile we’ve ever seen in a four-year stretch in college hoops history. We’ve had 55 out of the 79 schools in the Power Five see jobs swaps since 2021; that’s 69.6%.
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Matt Norlander
Four years ago, we had 14 changes at the high-major level. If you’ve lost track on who that is, well, that’s why you’re here. All of them are graded below, in alphabetical order.
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Grading 2021’s high-major hires
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