Iowa basketball coaching candidates: 8 names who could replace Fran McCaffery
For the first time since the first term of the Obama Administration, Iowa is looking for a new men’s basketball coach.
The Hawkeyes fired Fran McCaffery Friday after 15 seasons at the school, creating another vacancy at a major-conference program.
McCaffery’s exit naturally raises questions about who will follow him in Iowa City.
Iowa was a consistently successful program under McCaffery, making seven NCAA Tournament appearances in his tenure, though it never advanced past the second round. The Hawkeyes’ on-court achievements predate McCaffery, as they regularly racked up March Madness bids under Lute Olson, George Raveling and Tom Davis, highlighted by a Final Four run in 1980.
Given that track record and Iowa’s standing as a member of the Big Ten — one of the two financial behemoth conferences in college athletics along with the SEC — the opening should be attractive to a number of qualified candidates.
Who might the Hawkeyes and athletic director Beth Goetz turn to? Here’s a look at some potential coaching options for Iowa:
Iowa basketball coaching candidates
Ben McCollum, Drake
Iowa’s best potential hire just might be someone who’s already in the state. McCollum has had a stellar first season at Drake, located about 150 miles west in Des Moines. The Bulldogs are 30-3 and won both the Missouri Valley regular season and tournament championships.
McCollum’s resume goes well beyond this season. He was a decorated Division II coach at Northwest Missouri State, where he won four national championships in 15 seasons. The 43-year-old McCollum was born in Iowa City and grew up across the state in Storm Lake, Iowa.
The biggest obstacle for the Hawkeyes with McCollum might be a school in their own conference, as he’s reportedly one of the front-runners for the open Indiana job.
Darian DeVries, West Virginia
In the same ways that McCollum makes sense for Iowa, so does his predecessor at Drake. DeVries is an Iowa native whose brother, Jared, was a consensus all-American for the Hawkeyes’ football team. After a wildly successful run at Drake, where he went 150-55 and went to the NCAA Tournament four times in six seasons, he left for West Virginia last offseason. This season, he has helped carry an injury plagued Mountaineers team to a 19-13 mark and a likely spot in the NCAA Tournament.
The biggest question for DeVries could be whether he’s willing to leave West Virginia after just 12 months and whether Iowa would be willing to pay a nearly $5 million buyout. If both those things can be worked out, though, Iowa would not only get DeVries, but potentially his son, Tucker, a two-time Missouri Valley player of the year who has a year of eligibility remaining should he choose to exercise it.
Chris Jans, Mississippi State
Another Iowa native, Jans has extensive basketball ties to the state, having played at Loras College in Dubuque and coached at Kirkwood Community College in Cedar Rapids. In eight seasons as a Division I head coach, he’s 206-83, with three NCAA Tournament appearances in five seasons at New Mexico State and soon-to-be three trips to the Big Dance in three seasons at Mississippi State.
Jans is making $4.2 million this season with the Bulldogs, with whom he’s signed through the 2027-28 season. Would he be willing to leave what appears to be a good situation?
Jerrod Calhoun, Utah State
Calhoun is in his first season at Utah State, but has spent much of his career in the midwest and Appalachia. A former assistant coach for Bob Huggins at West Virginia, the Ohio native went 124-38 in five seasons at Division II Fairmont State before going 118-106 in seven seasons at Youngstown State, a historically difficult place to win.
This season, he has Utah State at 26-6 and safely in the NCAA Tournament field.
Niko Medved, Colorado State
Medved has been a steady winner throughout his 12-year Division I head coaching career. He went 42-28 in his final two seasons at Furman, which went 7-24 the season before his hiring, before spending a year at Drake, where he led the Bulldogs to a 10-win improvement in his lone season there.
He’s 140-84 in six seasons at Colorado State, including NCAA Tournament appearances in two of the past three seasons, with potentially a third bid on the way. Medved has shown an impressive ability to develop and, more importantly in the age of the transfer portal, retain players. One snag for Iowa could be that Medved will almost certainly be a candidate for the vacancy at his alma mater, Minnesota.
Steve Forbes, Wake Forest
Forbes, like others on this list, is an Iowa native with coaching experience in the state (in his case, at Southwestern Community College in Creston). He’s 222-108 across 10 seasons at East Tennessee State and Wake Forest, including a 92-65 mark with the Demon Deacons.
He has improved what had been arguably the ACC’s worst program at the time of his hiring, going 86-49 over the past four seasons at Wake Forest, but he has yet to make an NCAA Tournament during that time, which has at least raised questions about his job security after his fifth season.
Brian Wardle, Bradley
A former star player at Marquette, Wardle has done well as a head coach in 15 seasons at Green Bay and Bradley. The Braves have gone 74-30 over the past three seasons, capped off by a 26-8 mark this season that ended with a loss to McCollum and Drake in the Missouri Valley championship game.
Alan Huss, High Point
Huss has only two years of experience as a Division I head coach, but has more than proven himself during that brief stretch. After six seasons as an assistant coach at Creighton, Huss was hired by High Point in 2023 and has led the Panthers to a 56-14 mark. Earlier this week, they won the Big South Tournament to earn the program’s first-ever NCAA Tournament berth.
Huss is an Illinois native who played at Creighton under Dana Altman.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Iowa basketball coaching candidates: 8 names who could replace Fran McCaffery
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