Report: UMass decides on Matt McCall's future with Minutemen

UMass has decided to fire head men’s basketball coach Matt McCall after five seasons at the helm of the minutemen, according to a report from ESPN’s Jeff Borzello and Pete Thamel.

UMass still has two regular-season games left on schedule — a home contest on Wednesday against Fordham, and an away game at George Mason on Saturday — and it appears as though McCall will finish out the year, according to the report. Borzello said that McCall “will coach” the first game against Fordham, and “at this point” he is “expected to finish out the season.”

McCall has UMass sitting at 11th place of 14 A-10 teams, as the Minutemen have a 12-16 overall record and a 5-11 record in A-10 play. UMass leads only Saint Joseph’s, La Salle and Duquesne in the A-10 conference standings.

McCall never made the tournament in his five seasons at the helm of UMass, nor did the Minutemen ever finish at or above .500 under his leadership. McCall’s best season — excluding the abbreviated 2020-21 campaign that saw UMass go 8-7 with a shortened schedule — came in 2019-20, when the Minutemen went 14-17 overall. McCall finished with a 58-81 record with the Minutemen.

McCall was hired ahead of the 2017-18 season to replace Derek Kellogg, a UMass alumnus that went 155-137 in nine seasons with the Minutemen before his firing. Kellogg made the NCAA Tournament once in his nine-year tenure. Kellogg now serves as the head coach at LIU.

Previously the head coach at Chattanooga, McCall first gained notoriety in the 2015-16 season, his first of two seasons with the Chattanooga Mocs. He led the program to a 29-6 record, which was good for the regular-season Southern Conference title, and he then led Chattanooga to the Southern Conference Tournament championship. After winning the SoCon tournament, McCall had successfully picked up where former Chattanooga head coach Will Wade left off by punching a ticket to the NCAA Tournament. He was named SoCon Coach of the Year in his first season with the Mocs, but McCall went 19-12 in his second and final season with Chattanooga, ultimately failing to make the NCAA Tournament.

McCall, 40, attended Florida, and he got his start in the coaching realm with the Gators. He first served as Florida’s director of operations from 2006-2008, then accepted a job as an assistant at FAU, where he worked from 2008-2011. In his third and final role before being hired at Chattanooga, McCall returned to the University of Florida, where he was named an assistant coach in 2011.