Indiana found success in a mid-major head coach for football; maybe they can in basketball too.
Indiana found a lot of success going to a mid-major program in college football to find their new head coach last season. Curt Cignetti truly made his mark on Indiana forever by leading him to their best season in the program’s history, and he didn’t come from a big program like Georgia, Ohio State, or big-time schools.
Indiana basketball may be in the market for a new head coach after this season with the way things are going with Mike Woodson. The Hoosier State of Mind did an article talking about which head coaches with experience could come in to help lead the program back to the top, but maybe they should be looking to the smaller programs instead like they did in football.
So if Indiana chooses to move on from Woodson this offseason, here are five mid-major head coaches that could be good replacements.
James Jones has been coaching at Yale for a very long time, dating back to 1999. He has built quite the record at Yale, even becoming the winningest coach in Yale men’s basketball history with 407 wins. Jones has been sneaky good in the last few seasons, with an NCAA Tournament appearance in five of the last six seasons, including the 2020 NCAA Tournament that ended up being canceled.
Jones would bring a lot of experience to Indiana with the number of years he has been in the game and doing with probably not as high-quality of players as he could get with the Hoosiers. He would be a great hire for Indiana.
Penny Hardaway was a well-known player in the NBA, most known for playing with the Phoenix Suns and Orlando Magic. Since hanging up his cleats, Hardaway has been a head coach for the Memphis Tigers and has been since 2018. since taking over, he has a 150-66 record with two NCAA Tournament appearances in the last two years.
It may not seem like Hardaway is a good choice, but with only two NCAA Tournament appearances, he has a lot of coaching experience and winning in a small conference. Hardaway also brings an aspect of recruiting that not many other coaching have in being a recent former player in the NBA.
Bucky McMillan has only been a head coach for five years, and before joining, Samford was just a high school basketball coach. McMillan took some time to learn and understand what it took to be a college basketball coach but has certainly begun to pick it up.
After only getting six wins in his first season, McMillan led his team to 20 or more wins for the next three seasons, which also included a conference regular season championship in 2023 and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2024. McMillan knows how to find a diamond in the rough and turn it into a well-oiled machine in his system.
Ryan Odom is a proven winner at multiple mid-major programs, starting with UMBC when they had an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2018 when his No. 16 seeded squad was the first team of that seed to take down a No. 1 seed when they beat Virginia. A few years later, he took the head coaching position at Utah State, where he had an NIT appearance in his first season in 2022 and an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2023.
Odom has shown he can be a winner at a few different smaller programs, so why not give him the keys to a bigger program and see what he can do with more money and better recruiting tools, he would probably bring his history of success with him.
Shaka Smart has certainly proven he is a winner, not just at a smaller program like Marquette but at a larger program like Texas, and he also had a lot of success with VCU, which is where Texas noticed Smart. Including this season, Smart has coached for 16 seasons and has made the NCAA Tournament 11 of those seasons and the NIT once and won it with Texas.
Smart is a proven winner at both a high level and a small level, so getting him to Indiana could really do some good, especially if the Hoosiers want to get strong recruits in the building.