The Big 12 Conference has seen two men’s basketball coaching changes since the end of the 2024-25 regular season.
In addition, one Big 12 women’s team has made a hire and two more programs are still looking for their coaches.
Here are five takeaways from these coaching searches, changes and news.
THE HODGE PODGE
Do you like the hiring of Ross Hodge at West Virginia? Do you hate it? Because, if you’re a purveyor of social media, there is not an in between.
The current North Texas coach was hired to take over the Mountaineers men’s program on Wednesday, even though his time with the Mean Green isn’t done yet. They’re still playing in the NIT.
Current coaches and basketball analysts love the hire.
There was more than that came from. Baylor’s Scott Drew, Texas Tech’s Grant McCasland and ESPN’s Fran Fraschilla chimed in. McCasland is a key figure here. He was Hodge’s predecessor at UNT. He was also Hodge’s boss.
It’s not all sunshine and lollipops. West Virginia Sports Now reported that some donors are hesitant to get on board with supporting him.
In many ways, his bio reads like McCasland’s. He played college basketball. He coached in the lower NCAA ranks and in the junior college ranks before he started working his way up the ladder. His first mentor was former Iowa State boss Larry Eustachy. His second was McCasland. Hodge was an assistant for McCasland at Arkansas State and followed him to North Texas.
When McCasland took the Texas Tech job, the Mean Green elevated Hodge.
For those not on board with Hodge, consider this, though I’m not pushing you to like the hire. When McCasland was hired by Texas Tech, he had an .816 winning percentage in the juco ranks and a .675 winning percentage at North Texas. Hodge’s winning percentages in the same arenas are .859 and .667.
I think he’s a comparable hire. The only difference is McCasland had a little history with Tech and Hodge doesn’t with WVU. But he does have a history with Mountaineers athletic director Wren Baker, who was at UNT before he took over in Morgantown.
I learned a long time ago that winning the press conference doesn’t mean anything (look at how some folks feel about Kansas State’s Jerome Tang right now). But the mixed reaction to Hodge is likely more about who WVU didn’t get, namely Ben McCollum and Jarrod Calhoun, along with the buyer’s remorse when it comes to Darian DeVries.
But if Hodge tracks like McCasland, this should work out.
THE JENSEN EQUATION
The Craig Smith firing at Utah was a bit of a stumper. He was fired after four seasons, and the Utes were over .500 in league action at the time. Utah was also coming off a 22-win season. The whole thing was a bit curious.
It’s now becoming clear that Smith’s firing was less about what was happening on the court and more about what was happening off the court.
The Utes hired Alex Jensen, the former standout guard for the Utes under Rick Majerus, who was an assistant with the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks. KSL’s Josh Furlong got the details on his contract and he’ll make a base of $3.6 million, with incentives. Interestingly, his base is $1.2 million more than Smith made.
It looks like the athletic department is throwing everything it has behind Jensen, too. The Utes are set to hire a general manager for basketball, Wes Wilcox, who also has NBA experience. Jensen’s first assistant hire is an NBA assistant. That costs money.
So will a new basketball arena, as Utah announced its intention to build a new arena to replace the Huntsman Center (they’re calling it a relocation but it’s basically a new arena).
It is just a coincidence that all of this happened after Jensen’s hiring? Maybe the arena, but not everything else. Sometimes you need someone with a personal connection with the program to make all of this work. It doesn’t get much more personal than Jensen.
Oh, and if all of this sounds eerily familiar, Jensen’s coaching resume is almost a perfect match for Kevin Young’s before he was hired by BYU last year.
College basketball is a copycat league, just like any other sport.
AND HURLEY REMAINS
Like most everyone else, I though Bobby Hurley was toast after the Big 12 Tournament. Athletic director Graham Rossini surprised us all and kept him.
ASU was well within its rights to move on. Hurley was 168-150 in 10 seasons and has only taken the Sun Devils to three NCAA Tournaments. If that’s the standard, that’s not enough.
So why keep him? Money.
Hurley is entering the final year of his contract. He’s due to make close to $3 million, plus some incentives. Had ASU fired him, it would have owed him all of that. Now, in this world of college basketball, that’s not a difficult pill to swallow.
But Arizona State’s athletic department is being heavily subsidized by the university, which is unusual for a power conference program. Rossini is trying to right the ship in that department. So, it may be the athletic department’s issues that saved Hurley this year — and allowed him to coach in next week’s Crown Basketball Championship.
But only success will save him next year.
SUN DEVILS WOMEN START OVER
Arizona State did move on from its women’s coach, Natasha Adair, after three seasons. She went 29-62 and won seven conference games. If money was part of the rational in keeping Hurley, one must wonder why the administration thought playing Adair more than $1 million in buyout money was worth it?
In comes Molly Miller, who is one of the rising stars in the women’s game. She’s fresh off taking Grand Canyon to its first NCAA Tournament bid, where the Lopes lost to Baylor.
All Miller must do is move across town to move up the coaching ladder.
The quick bio? She played Division II basketball at Drury in Missouri, where she averaged 12.1 points over four seasons. She was an assistant at Drury, became its head coach and then took over at Grand Canyon. Her career record is 297-55.
She can coach. That’s clear. Now, she’ll be tasked with rebuilding a program that hasn’t been to the NCAA Tournament since before COVID. That will be a much harder task.
Expect some of her former players at GCU to migrate across town. That’s how things work these days.
WHAT’S LEFT?
Two women’s jobs remain open. The Houston job appears to be down to two front-runners — UTSA coach Karen Aston and former Kentucky coach Matthew Mitchell, per Paper City Sports.
I think Aston’s the right fit. She knows the Big 12, having coached at Texas. She understands the conference and would give the program instant credibility.
The other job is at BYU, where Amber Whiting was let go and her daughter, Amari, has already landed as a transfer at Oklahoma State. Interestingly, there doesn’t seem to be much movement right now.
There is much going on at BYU — and it’s not just the Sweet 16 run. Athletic director Tom Holmoe is set to retire, and his replacement has not been selected, either.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard.
