The Year 1 hit rate on college basketball coaching hirings seems to be improving in the NIL era.
Last spring, we had 56 coaching changes in Division I. It wound up being 57 by mid-autumn, after Bruce Pearl's retirement gave us one more flip before the start of the season. Among that group of 57, 13 teams (23%) reached the NCAA Tournament in their first year with their new guy. The 13 first-time coaches in the tournament set a record, breaking the previous mark of 11 in 1987 and 2008.
Having a better than 1-in-5 chance of getting to the big stage with a new coach is especially inspiring, considering many of those schools are mid- or low-majors or power-conference programs that underwent changes after tough seasons. It's also why we might have at least 50 head coaching changes every March-into-April moving forward.
I've assembled the list of 2025-26's best debuts and split up the honorees between the high- and mid-major levels. With the exception of Will Wade's messy one-and-done canvassing in Raleigh, all the power-conference coaches included got their teams to the NCAAs. (I can't call Wade's whole deal a "successful" endeavor, given how it ended.) At the mid-major level, every first-year coach who made the tournament is included, as are all the ones who won at least 20 games in their initial seasons.
The Wahoos didn't go as far in the NCAA Tournament as any school with a first-year coach, but on balance, they had the best season. Virginia was the only power-conference program with a first-year coach who won at least 30 games. The Cavaliers finished 30-6 and earned a No. 3 seed, the team's best year since Tony Bennett's national title season in 2018-19. Odom's team fell to Tennessee in the second round, but a second-place ACC finish to Duke, a really good portal haul in Year 1, and a top-20 team in the country are great things to build on. Virginia figures to be in the mix near the top of the ACC again due to bringing back Thijs De Ridder, Sam Lewis, Chance Mallory and Johann Grünloh.
Hawkeyes fans hadn't seen their men's team make the Sweet 16 this century. They had 15 years of ups and downs under Fran McCaffery, and so it was time for a change. McCollum, who grew up in the area, was available and the obvious pick in the spring of 2025. And voilà: He immediately guides the Hawkeyes to the Elite Eight. The second-round win over top-seeded Florida is on the shortest of short lists for best moments this program has had in the past 25 years ... and the ensuing Sweet 16 win over corn/Big Ten rival Nebraska isn't far behind. And then McCollum rebuffed North Carolina's interest. Iowa earned a No. 9 seed, but the tournament can change the whole vibe of a season. Iowa finished 24-13, and now we see how McCollum does without Bennett Stirtz running his offense.
How about this for an intro: Lucas took over a Miami program that went 7-24 the year before he got there. This past season, the Hurricanes went 26-9 and earned a 7-seed, advancing to the second round of the tournament. Few D-I coaches (if any?) had ever overseen a 19-win turnaround while simultaneously making their debut as a head coach. Lucas' reputation rightfully took an immediate jump, thanks in no small part to some healthy NIL backing in Coral Gables. The Canes finished third in the ACC after going 11-2 against the 338th non-conference schedule. Miami is loading up for Year 2 -- adding the likes of Georgia transfer Somto Cyril and Villanova transfer Acaden Lewis -- and figures to be better in 2026-27.
The Wildcats won two national titles and made four Final Fours under Jay Wright, the last in 2022, Wright's final season. Kyle Neptune took over, and VU fell off the map, missing the NCAAs three years in a row. That can't stand at Villanova. So Willard took the train up from Maryland and immediately brought the Wildcats back into the fold, going 24-9 and earning a No. 8 seed in his first tour at VU. Willard's team was the clear-cut third-best squad in the Big East behind St. John's and UConn. Those three were also the only ones in the NCAA Tournament conversation and the only top-50 teams from the league at KenPom. Villanova finished 33rd there. Year 2 will be about bringing Villanova back into the conversation as a consistent Top 25 outfit.
It ended well enough, as Texas made a Sweet 16 run and then nearly took out Purdue in the West Regional semifinals in San Jose. But the Longhorns narrowly made the tournament, getting into the First Four as a No. 11 seed after entering Selection Sunday at 18-14, losers of five of their last six. Wins over NC State (ending Will Wade's NC State fling), BYU (ending AJ Dybantsa's college career) and Gonzaga (ending the Zags' WCC era) wound up getting Texas to a 21-15 finish under Miller. Miller had never been the coach of a bubble team until the past two seasons: with Xavier in 2025 and Texas this year. It doesn't seem likely at all that he'll live that life again in 2027: Miller's bringing in a portal haul that should have Texas as a top-15 team going into November.
The quietest of the six power-conference programs to make the Big Dance in the first year under new management. Bucky McMillan basically backed into this job in early April of 2025 and made sure there was no big fall-off after Buzz Williams bolted for Maryland. The Aggies were a No. 10 seed that finished 22-12 after slotting sixth in the SEC standings. A&M held off Saint Mary's in the first round of the tourney, then got clobbered 88-57 by Houston in the second round. But a nice debut for a coach who, until the past 12 months, had literally never lived outside the state of Alabama.
An easy name to put atop the list of Year 1 mid-major success stories. The Panthers -- who were loaded with one of the richest NIL war chests outside the power-conference structure -- won more games last season than any other school with a first-year coach. High Point finished 31-5, the 31st victory coming in rip-roaring fashion, an 83-82 win against fifth-seeded Wisconsin in the first round of the NCAAs. It was one of the five or six best games of the '25 Dance. Clayman inherited the job after Alan Huss left in April of 2025 to be the coach-in-waiting at Creighton. He did a fabulous job storming through the Big South, then went viral for his postgame diatribe following that Wisconsin win. Clayman called out the high majors that wouldn't schedule the Panthers. It was a terrific television moment, and I hope it worked. Let's see a couple of big-boy opponents step up to face High Point next season.
Just because VCU is one of the, what, three best mid-major jobs in the country doesn't mean success is immediately guaranteed. Martelli is the fourth coach in program history to make the NCAAs in his first season with the Rams. He not only got VCU into the Atlantic 10 Tournament championship, but his team also made history. The Rams overcame a 19-point deficit against No. 6 North Carolina, and in winning, set a record for the largest comeback in the first round. It was so catastrophic that it led to Hubert Davis' firing in Chapel Hill. Martelli's team ended 28-8 after losing to Illinois. There was also a win over Virginia Tech early in the season, which is always a big deal in Richmond.
The Cowboys made back-to-back-to-back NCAA Tournaments, the previous two under Will Wade and this year's under Wade's former assistant. Armstrong had a 28-6 season in the Southland and a top-70 KenPom team at that. McNeese gave Vanderbilt a fun run in the first round of the Big Dance, but couldn't pull the upset. Still, Armstrong's squad was a defensive nuisance and most certainly among the five best mid-major teams last season. Intrigued to see if this will keep up for a fourth straight year in Lake Charles, Louisiana.
It was so successful that he's already gone. Hodgson came over after two seasons at Arkansas State. He recruited a roster that went 25-9, won the American and earned an 11-seed. The Bulls were THE trendiest first-round upset pick in this year's tournament ... then lost 83-79 to Louisville. But Hodgson kept USF relevant and lived up to the hype. Now he's at Providence and looking to flip the Friars. We'll see if Chris Mack has a capsule dedicated to his debut in this space a year from now; he took the South Florida job in late March after leaving a plum Charleston gig.
The former Duke All-American got the TSU job in the middle of last summer and managed to pull off one of the most impressive turnarounds of any coach in 2025-26. Smith, 37, kept Tennessee State together and won the Ohio Valley's regular season and postseason titles, something the program had not accomplished since 1993. The NCAA Tournament appearance was the school's first in 32 years. Smith got sweet assistant jobs at Duke, Louisville and Memphis after his playing days were over, but this is how you make your name in college coaching. If the Tigers run it back in 2027 with a second straight NCAA appearance, Smith will find himself with a bigger job a year from now.
It would have been easy for McCaffery to accept retirement at 65 years old and say goodbye after 15 years at Iowa. He still had the fire, and his alma mater had an opening. The Quakers (18-11) went to the NCAA Tournament, getting there for just the second time since 2007. This wasn't the Ivy League's best team, but it broke through thanks to one of the best games of March: 88-84 in OT in the conference title game against the league bully, Yale. TJ Power's 44-point performance was one of the must-see productions in March.
I would've been tempted to pick Navy to pull an upset in a 13 vs. 4 game, had the Midshipmen made it to the Dance. Alas, Perry's team was upset in dramatic, heartbreaking fashion, 73-72, in the Patriot League semis by Boston University.
Boston University just downed the best Navy team in generations in the Patriot League semis on this play. March is already mad 😱pic.twitter.com/A6Xrjxp5vu
Navy finished 26-8, which was one of its best seasons in three-plus decades. Perry had an awesome, hoss of a 6-foot-11 senior in Aidan Kehoe and a terrific fourth-year point guard, Austin Benigni. March can be cruel; Navy's two-game downer to end the season was as harsh a reminder as any other team's demise. Perry spent a long time waiting for this job. I hope his team next season can come close to being as well-rounded as this one.
Maybe the best mid-major team that got the least amount of publicity in 2025-26. The Lumberjacks went 28-6, but it fell apart at the end: Braeuer's Jacks were 28-4 heading into the Southland title game against McNeese, only to fall by 17 points. Then SFA was immediately booted from the NIT by Tulsa. But it was an impressive turnaround by the 40-year-old first-year coach, who restored the pride at a place that made the NCAAs four times in a five-year span from 2014-2018.