College basketball: 5 head coaches who are poised for first year success in 2025-26
The 2024-25 male basketball male season was a banner campaign for first-year-old head coaches,
Dusty May took Michigan from a brand from 8 to 23 years before 27 victories and a trip to Sweet 16. Pat Kelsey won the ACC year trainer for winning 27 games in Louisville, who won 25 games in the three previous seasons. Mark Pope obtained Kentucky in the second weekend of the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2019.
Here are five new hires for 2025-26 which are about to reproduce this level of success during their first years of work.
Will Wade, nc state
Say what you want, man wins wherever he’s going. And with the list that Wade gathered for his first season, there is no reason why Nc State does not go and miss her Catchy Tournament in 2025 to make the NCAA tournament safely in 2026.
Texas Tech Transfer Darrion Williams was one of the best players in last year’s big dance, and it will be joined by a busy portal class which also includes Tre Holloman (Michigan State), Terrance Arceneaux (Houston), Jerry Deng (Florida State) and Ven-Allen Lubin (North Carolina).
A sign that Wade believes that his program is ready for immediate success? He wasted no time making shots in the Rival North Carolina in the state.
Ryan Odom, Virginie
Virginia has still not won a match in the NCAA tournament since the Reduction des Nets in 2019 and now comes from its first losing season since 2009-10. The riders will go completely from life with Tony Bennett this season and will do it with the man who has designed the most embarrassing moment in the history of UVA sport.
Ryan Odom, who became the first head coach to lead a 16-like ball in the NCAA tournament when his UMBC team shocked the head of N ° 1 Virginia in 2018, is now the man at UVA. He arrives in Charlottesville after additional stops at Utah State and VCU, which he both returned to the NCAA tournament in his second year of work.
The success in Virginia could arrive a year earlier for Odom, which brought 10 newcomers to fill its list. This group is highlighted by the transfer of San Francisco, Malik Thomas, who has the potential to be an All-ECC interpreter. With the addition of the great German man Johann Grunloh, Odom will have the capacity to put a program on the ground which has a three -point threat to each position.
Odom wins wherever he goes, and now he has resources and players to gain at a level that was not possible at any of his previous stops.
Sean Miller, Texas
Texas has not missed the NCAA tournament since 2019, but consecutive seasons with lists that seemed capable of much more spent from the end of the Rodney Terry era in Austin. More than times than in the past 15 years, it has the impression that longhorns have produced results in a disproportionate way in terms of talents they have at their disposal. This is a trend that the powers in place in Ut Hope changes under the direction of Miller, which made the somewhat surprising decision to bolt from Xavier for the second time, despite the fact that the school had launched its career in 2022.
During his first year in Texas, Miller will combine an interesting mixture of new arrivals with three main returns – Jordan Pope (11.0 ppg), Chendall Weaver (6.4 ppg) and Tramon Mark (10.6 ppg) – a longhorn team that bounced enough, ironically.
The Longhorns do not yet have the talent to bring Miller to his first Final Four still elusive for the moment, but there is enough for UT to be the top 25.
Darian Devries, Indiana
Do not be shocked if the Hoosiers got much more in 2025-2026 than most people are currently predicting.
Darian Devries won 20 or more games in his six seasons as a Drake chief traction, then should Entered Virginie-Western Virginia in the NCAA tournament last season despite a touch of injuries in its first and only one season with Mountaineers.
In Bloomington, Devries has already assembled a class of the transfer portal among the first 10 titled by his son, the double player of the year of the Missouri Valley Conference Tucker Devries. The other transfers Reed Bailey (Davidson), Lamar Wilkerson (Sam Houston) and Tayton Conerway (Troy) have the potential to be stars at the level of the power conference.
There may not be a basic fans in more desperate university basketball to return to the sports elite than Indiana. An NCAA tournament during the year would be a great first stage of Devries to show Hoosier Nation that he is able to be the guy who finally does.
Jai Lucas, Miami
The only man on this list without previous experience of head coach, Lucas obtained the concert at South Beach after three seasons as the right arm of Jon Scheyer in Duke. In order to give yourself the best chance of immediately assembling a competitive list in Miami, Lucas made the unconventional decision to leave Duke at the end of the regular season, and was not with the Blue Devils during their race in the Final Four.
The move paid. Lucas immediately convinced a handful of the best transfer gate players in sport to sign with the Hurricanes, notably the leader of Michigan Tre Donaldson, the Indiana striker Malik Reneau and the great man of Tcu Ernest Udah Jr.
Lucas coaches chops are not proven, but the level of talent at U 2025-26 is not. If Lucas has the goods, the Hurricanes should, at the very least, be in the mixture for a place of NCAA tournament, a year, win seven games and finish the dead last in ACC.
