College Basketball: 5 coaches who could be on the hot seat
By J.P. Scott
With the start of the 2014-2015 college basketball season still nearly two months away, many players, coaches and fans around the country are still filled with optimism.
There are a few places, however, where that optimism is replaced with angst — as a few head coaches appear to be one more bad or average season away from losing their jobs.
Let’s take a look a five current college basketball coaches who could be on the hot seat before this season wraps up.
Mark Turgeon, Maryland — The Terrapins aren’t traditionally a team you find in the bottom half of the ACC, but during all three years of Mark Turgeon’s tenure, thats what they’ve ended up. Since arriving in College Park in 2011, Turgeon has led to Terps to one appearance in the NIT and posted a 23-29 conference record. Don’t look now, but the Terrapins are about to begin play in the nation’s best basketball conference — The Big Ten.
A finish in the bottom half this season — something that seems likely — will probably mark the end ofTurgeon’s time at Maryland.
Mike Brey, Notre Dame — Brey and his Fighting Irish had a rough go of it during their first season in the ACC. I’d like to think it was just a down year, but I have a hunch that Brey was piling up wins in the old Big East as the result of what really was an easier conference schedule than the one he faces now.
Whatever the case, Notre Dame is not the sort of place where you can put together back-to-back losing or even average seasons and expect to keep your job. Brey will need to orchestrate one of the more impressive turnarounds in the nation this season to stay employed.
Oliver Purnell, DePaul — You wouldn’t think it would be possible for DePaul to even have a hot seat, but somehow Oliver Purnell has found it. He went from winning 20 games a season at Clemson in the ACC to making it an adventure just to get to double digits at DePaul. With the structure of the new Big East, DePaul is in a position simply from a geographical recruiting standpoint to be one of the elite teams in the conference.
If the Blue Demons can’t find their way out of the cellar and into the upper-teens in the win column, there will be a job opening in Chicago.
Frank Martin, South Carolina — Martin was a sexy, big-splash hire for the Gamecocks a couple of years ago. Fast-forward two seasons and South Carolina is still a doormat in the worst Power-5 conference in college basketball. Martin has coached the Gamecocks to a grand total of nine SEC wins in two campaigns.
It’s always tough to create a basketball culture at a football school or vice versa. That said, it’s being done at places like Nebraska and Wisconsin, making excuses for Martin’s rough patch in Columbia even harder to come up with.
Tom Crean, Indiana — When you sit back and think about the storied programs of college basketball, it doesn’t take long for the Indiana Hoosiers to come to mind along the likes of Dukes, North Carolina, Kentucky, UCLA and Kansas. Indiana is one of those places where you get the sense that nobody really cares how everything else is going, as long as the Hoosiers are dominating on the hardwood.
Under Tom Crean, that simply hasn’t been the case. Indiana has been what you’d call a serious contender once under Crean in six seasons. He has led them to 20 or more wins in a season only twice during his stay in Bloomington and and finished in the top half of the conference twice. If Crean fails to coach to the Hoosiers to an appearance in the NCAA Tournament this season, one of the best jobs in all of college basketball will likely be vacant.
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