Gone are the days of long runways for first-year coaches to build programs through high school recruiting and good, old-fashioned internal culture and development. In college basketball’s modern era, it’s all about “what can you do for me immediately?”
Louisville and Michigan are three perfect examples from the 2024-25 season of how quickly things can turn under new leadership. The Wolverines went from 8-24 to 27-10 and reached the Sweet 16 in coach Dusty May’s first season. Louisville went from 8-24 to 27-8 with an 18-2 ACC record in Pat Kelsey’s debut campaign.
Things weren’t so perfect for every first-year coach at a high-major program, of course. DePaul, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, SMU, Stanford, USC, Washington and West Virginia each missed the big Dance under first-year leaders.
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But others, including BYU, Kentucky and Vanderbilt saw significant immediate dividends on the backs of hastily assembled rosters. So how can we expect programs with new coaches to fare in 2025-26? As the dust begins to settle on college basketball’s 2025 player movement cycle, here’s the grading breakdown of how each high-major program with a new coach has fared.
Given the reportedly low-end budget that ex-Florida State player and NBA assistant Loucks had to work with for his first roster, he’s done a nice job of…
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