There is no coaching job in college basketball like Kentucky, and thus there are no coaching searches quite like the one athletics director Mitch Barnhart is about to undertake after with John Calipari leaving for Arkansas following 15 seasons that included 410 wins, one national title and four trips to the Final Four.
There simply aren’t many coaches out there with the level of accomplishment and presence to satisfy the Big Blue Nation, and among that group, there’s an even smaller number that would be willing to try. It’s an all-consuming public job with huge pressure and off-court demands. But it’s also got more upside than any other program in college basketball if someone can corral all the resources the school and the state have made available in pursuit of winning championships.
Here’s our initial best guess at some of the candidates who might be in line to replace Calipari.
The top tier
Scott Drew
If you take a step back and truly consider what he’s done at Baylor, it’s mind-blowing. The national championship in 2021 was probably a one-off, but the year-over-year consistency is one of the most impressive coaching feats in college basketball history reaching 12 of the last 16 NCAA Tournaments with five trips to the Sweet 16 or beyond. The question is whether anyone can convince him to uproot his family from Waco after two decades. Louisville tried and couldn’t do it. Kentucky is a different animal, though, and may be the one job that could tempt him.
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Tommy Lloyd
The numbers speak for themselves. In three seasons as a head coach, Lloyd is 88-20 at Arizona with two trips to the Sweet 16. And at age 49, he’s probably just getting started. Though he recently signed a new deal with the Wildcats, this is a bit of an unstable time at Arizona with school-wide budget issues, an upcoming conference change from the Pac-12 to the Big 12 and a new athletics director in Desiree Reed-Francois. Though it would cost a lot of buyout money to get Lloyd out of that deal – upwards of $12 million – it’s worth it if you think he’s the guy who can deliver championships.
Bruce Pearl
If Kentucky wanted someone who could deliver a similar type of presence and showmanship that Calipari brought to the table, they’d have to consider prying Pearl out of Auburn. Despite his long rap sheet of questionable ethics and NCAA issues, Pearl has built one of the top programs in the SEC at a historically difficult place to win. And you have to think he’d relish the chance to coach at a blueblood – just like Calipari back in 2009 when he left Memphis.
Buzz Williams
The bottom line on Williams is that he’s gotten premium results at non-premium programs. After an outstanding run at Marquette, he started over at Virginia Tech and rebuilt that outfit to an annual NCAA Tournament participant. Then he went to Texas A&M, another tough basketball job, and has significantly raised the floor with two consecutive NCAA appearances. Kentucky fans would certainly embrace the toughness and energy his teams play with, and putting the Big Blue brand behind a coach as good as Williams would be an interesting and perhaps devastating combination.
The Longshots
Mark Pope
The former Kentucky and NBA player has done quite well at BYU, going 110-52 with two NCAA Tournament appearances in five years. But is he truly ready to take over at his alma mater and everything that comes with it? Probably not.
Nate Oats
Oats has taken Alabama to its first Final Four and won two SEC regular-season titles in his five seasons with the Crimson Tide. And maybe the most incredible part of his success is that nobody knew who he was a decade ago when he was a former high school coach making the move up to Buffalo as an assistant. But is Kentucky really going to pay an $18 million buyout for Oats? That seems a little steep.
Mick Cronin
Despite his ties to the area as a former coach at nearby Murray State and Cincinnati, the timing probably isn’t great. Cronin is coming off a rebuilding year at UCLA and would be a tough sell to the Kentucky fan base, despite a long track record of success including a Final Four appearance in 2021.
Brad Underwood
Underwood’s record is sneaky good: Over the last four years, his teams have gone 56-24 in the Big Ten with two tournament titles. The Fighting Illini’s trip to the Elite Eight further validated him after some disappointing NCAA performances. Kentucky fans probably don’t know much about Underwood, but they’ll learn quickly if he is hired.
The Unattainables
Jay Wright
Since the former Villanova coach stepped away two years ago, some fans have questioned whether he might be tempted at some point to come back. At age 62, Wright would still have some good years left if he wanted one more shot at a program built to win national titles. But by all accounts, Wright is quite happy doing television and has no interest in returning to the coaching lifestyle – especially in this era where it’s much harder to build teams through redshirts and long-term development the way he did at his peak.
Billy Donovan
Though he was heavily linked to Kentucky when the job opened in 2007 and once again in 2009, he could never quite rationalize leaving a comfortable situation at Florida for the craziness of Big Blue Nation. Instead, Donovan went the NBA route – and all indications are he has no interest in returning to the college game at this stage. Having said that, there’s no guarantee Donovan will keep his current job with the Chicago Bulls for the long haul or get another head coaching opportunity in the NBA if it doesn’t work out. It still seems unlikely, though, that he’d leave in the middle of a season to return to college – or that Kentucky would wait until late April for him to become available.
Rick Pitino
This would be by far the funniest outcome, and Pitino has often talked about his decision to leave Kentucky in 1997 being one that he has some regrets about. Pitino can still coach, but after everything that has happened since then, there’s no way this can happen. Right?
Dan Hurley
He has the ego and coaching chops to handle the Kentucky job. They’d love him there. But why leave UConn at this point? It just doesn’t make much sense.