25 worst coaching hires in the history of college basketball

21. Ricky Byrdsong – Northwestern (1993-1997)

• 34-78 record (4 seasons)

The first NCAA Tournament was held all the way back in 1939, and as many know, it took Northwestern until 2017 to finally make their first and only appearance in the Big Dance. The Wildcats, members of the Big Ten the entire time, have never put together a consistent program, and haven’t actually finished over .500 since that bid four years ago. There have been a number of coaches over their history who have gotten close to breaking through with the Wildcats, and then there are those that failed spectacularly.

Ricky Byrdsong played his collegiate ball at Iowa in the late ’70s and got much of his coaching experience on Lute Olson’s staff at Arizona. After six years as an assistant there, he took his first head coaching job at Detroit in 1988. His only head coaching experience before being hired at Northwestern, there’s nothing marvelous about what he did in five years with the Titans, with a 15-12 mark in 1993 standing out as his best season, a 53-87 total record. Still, Northwestern brought him aboard in 1993 for some reason.

Byrdsong’s tenure wasn’t successful but was certainly entertaining. He took a “walk on the wild side” during a game against Minnesota his first season and later missed several games to take care of his own mental health. Two of his players were indicted for fixing games during his tenure, and the Wildcats won just 19 total games in his final three seasons. The program was not in great shape and certainly didn’t move forward under Byrdsong’s watch. Sadly, he was murdered two years later just outside of Chicago while on a walk with his family.