Breaking down next dominoes to fall on college basketball hot seat, potential timeline

The college basketball season has only seen a couple of head coaching changes to this point, most recently at Ohio State where the Buckeyes moved on from Chris Holtmann. However, that isn’t to say that there aren’t coaches on the hot seat who could be moved on from.

While making an appearance on Andy Staples On3, James Fletcher shared a timeline for the next dominoes to fall in college basketball and shared a few names to look out for. He also explained that it’s important to remember basketball and football operate differently.

“It’s a little bit different than what we see in college football,” James Fletcher said. “We don’t see as many of these early goes where they kind of dump a guy in February to get the search going because you really can kind of start putting feelers out at the same point, regardless of what you’re doing. Usually, if you’re looking at the top pool of candidates, you have to wait for them to exit the NCAA Tournament anyways. So, you’re not really putting yourself at much of a disadvantage if you wait until you bow out of the conference tournament or the end of the regular season, whatever it might be.

“So, I don’t think we’re gonna see some big run of February firings here. That just hasn’t been the trend across college basketball recently.”

There are a few notable coaches who are clearly on the hot seat. Despite that, they all seem unlikely to be fired midseason. Fletcher started by bringing up Kenny Payne at Louisville.

“I think one of the things for Kenny Payne, in particular, is we’re kind of at that point. We know what the likely outcome is with Kenny Payne. It doesn’t seem like it’s a tenable situation here beyond the regular season. So, I think if you’re Louisville, you’re waiting to do this in a respectful manner, and if you weren’t willing to pull the trigger in December when things seemed to be crumbling around that program, I don’t think that two months later you’re gonna reach any point where you decide now is the time to get this search going early.”

Not every situation is the same. Vanderbilt and Michigan also have their own unique situations. Still, Fletcher doesn’t expect them to make changes before the season ends.

“Same situation with Vanderbilt. I think you kind of owe it to Jerry Stackhouse, what he’s tried to do. He has done all the right things in terms of trying to build that program up. It just hasn’t all clicked. It hasn’t really come together maybe he’d like. Maybe he hasn’t gotten some of the support that he would’ve liked. I think that there’s a lot in that Vanderbilt program that’s got to be ironed out if they want to compete in the SEC,” Fletcher said.

“And then Juwan Howard, a different situation as well where he is an alum there. I don’t think that they would do anything to kind of break that relationship more than it has to be, even if a coaching change is needed at those spots.”

Ultimately, the coaching carousel is coming to college basketball. However, it’s not likely that there will be a run of moves until the season actually comes to an end.