High-major college basketball coaches are often compared most to those who enter their respective conferences at the same time.
For Archie Miller, that meant Brad Underwood at Illinois and Chris Holtmann at Ohio State were often mentioned in the same breath.
And for Mike Woodson, it was Micah Shrewsberry at Penn State and Ben Johnson at Minnesota who started Big Ten jobs at the same time.
At least two other coaches will take over at Big Ten schools along with Indiana’s Darian DeVries, it was announced on Monday. Both Iowa and Minnesota have announced or are expected to announce their new head coaches this week.
In the case of Iowa, it’s someone who has become quite familiar to IU fans in recent weeks. The Hawkeyes announced Monday former Drake head coach Ben McCollum will take over in Iowa City.
DeVries and McCollum, both Iowa natives, have been connected for years.
Drake chose DeVries over McCollum in 2018, and both were thought to be highly coveted by Iowa this year.
Who was the better hire? Now they’ll go head-to-head at least once a year for the foreseeable future.
Like Indiana, Minnesota is hiring a new head coach four years after hiring Johnson. Multiple reports indicate that his replacement will be Colorado State’s Niko Medved, a Minnesota native. One assistant coach to watch with an IU connection is Tom Ostrom, another Minnesota product. He was on DeVries’ staff the last few years, but it won’t be a surprise to see Ostrom go elsewhere this cycle.
In an interesting coincidence, Medved, DeVries and McCollum were the last three head coaches at Drake, in that order.
While he was hired a year ago, Michigan’s Dusty May will always be compared to Indiana coaches going forward. With a Final Four at Florida Atlantic, and now a Big Ten title and Sweet 16 at Michigan in year one, he’ll forever be the alumnus who got away if he continues to succeed — if only IU had made a change in 2024.
Michigan is especially interesting, because it was Juwan Howard’s early success in Ann Arbor that helped build the case for Indiana to hire Woodson. In the end, neither of those situations went well, as they were fired, or retired if your prefer, in successive years.
Is there still more turnover to come among the Big Ten head coaches this offseason?
Northwestern’s Chris Collins has been rumored to be a candidate for multiple openings, but there are also reports he’s redoing his contract to stay in Evanston. That remains fluid at the moment.
And despite advancing to the Sweet 16, Maryland’s Kevin Willard has been rumored to be a candidate for the Villanova opening. He has publicly complained in recent days about Maryland’s lack of investment in the basketball program as the school navigates a change at the athletic director position. Willard’s status in College Park will be interesting to watch in the days ahead.
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