The honeymoon stage is nearly over for every college basketball coach taking on a new job, but for now optimism is widespread, and all of them remain undefeated at their new stops.
Whether it was due to NBA departures, mutual partings of ways, retirements, coach firings, or coaches leaving for other power-five jobs, 13 power-five jobs changed hands this cycle. The difference this cycle from past ones is that many of the jobs that changed hands are well equipped to win right away because resources were infused into the program to attract candidates.
Everything from National Championship-winning jobs and blue blood jobs to seemingly obsolete ones opened in 2026-27 and went to a variety of candidates. Michigan hired from within. North Carolina and Butler went the NBA route. Creighton awarded its coach in waiting. Kansas State, Providence, Arizona State, Georgia Tech and Cincinnati plucked non-power five head coaches. NC State and Boston College plucked high-level power-five assistants. LSU made the cycle's most controversial move by plucking a sitting Power Five head coach.
Every program listed believes it has its guy at this point, but which ones can win right away? Here's a ranking of each program with a newly appointed head coach from most likely to least likely to make the NCAA Tournament in 2026-27.
No. 1: Michigan
New head coach: Mike Boynton
Boynton has a chance to right his wrongs as a Power Five head coach after revitalizing his career as an assistant for Michigan’s 2026-27 team, and he has the best starting point of any year-one head coach in the sport.
Michigan returns one of America’s best guards in Final Four Most Outstanding point guard Elliot Cadeau and has the country's biggest breakout candidate alongside him in sophomore guard Trey McKenney. Those two have proven themselves as some of the best guards in the Big 10, and they also know how to win and fit the league's identity with their physicality. Boynton also has a little bit of everything in the frontcourt with modern rim-running big man JP Estrella, 7-foot-2 Cincinnati transfer Moustapha Thiam–who is as consistent a dunker and shot-blocker as Michigan could’ve found in the portal–7-foot-3 freshman Marcus Moller, and a Rolodex of four men.
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Perhaps what will determine the ceiling here is whether Swiss Army knife Roddy Gayle–a key piece on Michigan’s championship team–stays eligible for the entire season. Gayle has been granted a Temporary Restraining Order and is currently eligible, but his representatives will likely have to fight to keep it that way. Gayle is particularly important for Michigan because an ACL injury will keep five-star freshman wing Brandon McCoy out of what could’ve been his only college season.
In any case, this Michigan team surely won’t be as good as it was a year ago with Yaxel Lendeborg, Aday Mara and Morez Johnson on the roster with Dusty May on the sideline, but it would be surprising if Michigan isn’t on one of the top three seed lines come NCAA Tournament time. Missing the tournament would be a complete disaster and would send it looking for a new head coach.
No. 2: North Carolina
New head coach: Michael Malone
North Carolina’s complex search led it to take a big swing on former NBA championship-winning head coach Michael Malone, who is clear he’s in this to work rather than merely to be close to his daughter Bridget, a North Carolina volleyball player. Malone admits he’s had to train his eyes to watch high school and college prospects after refining the intricacies of Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray’s games over the last few years of his career, but he’s assembled a roster that’s sure to land in the preseason AP Top 25.
Questions remain regarding how good North Carolina really is, but it’s almost assuredly an NCAA Tournament team. By season's end, it should be pushing for a protected seed in the NCAA Tournament because of what it spent on its roster. At this point, there’s no indication that it won’t.
It still has to come together, but Malone appears to have a backcourt that can stack up against the best the ACC has to offer. North Carolina’s roster is headlined by NC State transfer guard Matt Able–who spurned the NBA Draft after a strong Combine showing–high-volume Utah guard transfer Terrence Brown and unicorn-like Virginia Tech transfer Neoklis Avdalas. Major questions surround North Carolina’s young frontcourt and what it can provide, though.
Like Michigan, it would require the college basketball world freezing over for North Carolina to miss the tournament. Who knows if it will be elite, but it should at least be good enough.
No. 3: Cincinnati
New head coach: Jerrod Calhoun
Calhoun is returning to his alma mater, where he began his coaching career under Bob Huggins, and he has a roster that could let him take advantage of the opportunity in year one.
The Big 12 will provide its challenges, but Calhoun has a reliable lead guard in Tulsa transfer Tylen Riley–who has made a living off of getting to the foul line, controlling the game with an assist rate that ranked No. 79 in the country a season ago and making just enough shots from beyond the arc to keep defenders honest–and a legitimate supporting cast that fits the hard-nosed identity of the program.
Calhoun made a splash by landing former Purdue wing and Wake Forest transfer Myles Colvin–who could be one of the Big 12’s best three-and-D players–Towson transfer Tyler Tejada–a well-paced, high-volume scoring guard that Calhoun describes as “unique”–two capable bigs with differing styles in Boston College transfer Jayden Hastings and George Mason transfer Riley Allenspach. Beyond that group, Calhoun has built one of the Big 12’s best benches and has a track record that shows he knows how to use it.
Cincinnati has the pieces to be an NCAA Tournament team either way, but its ceiling hinges on the eligibility of former Utah State star MJ Collins. Collins was Cincinnati’s best player on its foreign tour to the Bahamas after a true breakout year at Utah State a season ago, but he was ruled ineligible on August 21. Collins will continue to fight to play one more college season and get Cincinnati to the tournament in convincing fashion in year one of Calhoun’s tenure.
No.4: Providence
New head coach: Bryan Hodgson
Hodgson knows that at a place like Providence–where resources are aplenty and the fanbase is rabid–there’s no time for rebuilding. Providence finished the 2025-26 season with a 15-18 record and a seventh-place finish in the Big East, which it deemed not good enough, firing English.
English didn’t make the NCAA Tournament in his three seasons as Providence’s head coach, but Hodgson isn’t using that as a crutch. He appears to expect to get Providence back there right away. And Hodgson’s rèsumè indicates that he’s likely to. Hodgson is 70-37 as a Division I head coach and has reached the NCAA Tournament once–although one of his Arkansas State teams won the Sun Belt before losing in the conference championship game. Hodgson is a winner and hasn’t had a losing season as a head coach.
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Now, Hodgson has the wiggle room that comes with being in a Power Five league on Selection Sunday and a roster that looks like an NCAA Tournament team. Hodgson believes he has one of college basketball’s premier defenders in San Diego State transfer Miles Byrd, a big as talented as any he’s coached, in Northwestern transfer Arrinten Page, one of college basketball’s best shooters in Buffalo transfer Ryan Sabol, and a foundational program piece in returning wing Ryan Mela.
Whether Providence is a bubble team or is firmly an NCAA Tournament team will be determined by whether former G League Ignite and Westchester Knicks forward Dink Pate–who averaged 16.0 points and 6.6 rebounds per game in the G League a season ago– is eligible or not. Hodgson says ruling Pate ineligible would be “criminal” because he turned down 10-day and Two-Way contracts with the New York Knicks to comply with NCAA eligibility standards. Providence’s ceiling also hinges on Georgetown transfer Malik Mack and his ability to become more efficient in Hodgson’s system.
If those two things go Providence’s way, it could finish with the third-highest standing on Selection Sunday among teams with a first-year head coach.
No. 5: Creighton
New head coach: Alan Huss
Huss left a sweet gig at High Point to wait his turn under Greg McDermott at Creighton, but now it’s his time to become Creighton’s head man and begin his power-five head coaching career. In the year in waiting, Huss struggled to step back into an old role but believes he invested in relationships with players more than at any other point in his career.
Huss’ investment paid off when Creighton rotation pieces Jasen Green, Isaac Traudt, Austin Swartz and Hudson Greer announced their intentions to return. Creighton lost a few players to the transfer portal, but Huss told Basket Under Review this summer that most–if not all–of the players he was intent on keeping, he kept. Creighton appears to expect leaps from Swartz, McAndrew, and Greer.
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Creighton’s coaching staff supplemented its group of returners with high-profile transfer guard Wes Enis, San Diego State transfer BJ Davis–who is the closest thing on the roster to a true point guard–Providence transfer big man Oswin Erhunmwunse and a few other rotational pieces. Huss was the Creighton staffer most intent on embracing NIL when it first hit college sports, and he appears to be reaping the benefits all these years later.
Huss doesn’t have the Big East favorite on his hands here, but he very reasonably could have an NCAA Tournament team on his hands. He’s got continuity. He’s got a dynamic potential leading scorer in Enis. Size doesn’t appear to be a concern, either. Creighton was down in 2025-26, but it’s got a chance to hear its name on Selection Sunday again in 2026-27.
No. 6: NC State
New head coach: Justin Gainey
NC State doesn’t have the same buzz it did a year ago with Will Wade at the helm, but it’s got a chance to do more than Wade’s first team did in a season that ended in the First Four. Gainey appears to have the support he needs to win big at NC State, and it shows. NC State retained standout sophomore Paul McNeil through the coaching change and also hosted CJ Rosser–the No. 1 player in the class of 2027 on an official visit earlier this fall.
As for Gainey’s roster, it’s going to be fun in the worst-case scenario because of the dynamic shotmaking in its backcourt and an ACC sleeper in the best-case scenario. The difference between those two outcomes lies in NC State’s frontcourt performance and how veteran big man Ven-Allen Lubin’s eligibility battle shakes out.
If Lubin is ineligible, Gainey will be heavily reliant on 6-foot-10 UC Irvine transfer Kyle Evans–who averaged 12.1 points and 8.7 rebounds per game in 2026-27–and 6-foot-8 Washington State transfer Eemeli Yalaho–who averaged 10.7 points and 5.7 rebounds per game a year ago. NC State’s ceiling will also depend on former five-star recruit Darius Adams and whether he can take a leap after a relatively quiet year at Maryland.
What NC State does know is it has a bona fide star in McNeil and one of the best shot-making backcourts in the country. NC State may be relatively high-variance, but it appears set for a productive first year under Gainey.
No. 7: LSU
New head coach: Will Wade
Wade has made LSU the hardest team to evaluate on this list, and it’s not even close. Wade is historically a winner and has real buzz surrounding him as he returns to the sideline in Baton Rouge, but even Wade likely doesn’t know what his roster will look like when LSU opens the season on Nov. 3 against New Orleans.
All five of LSU’s projected starters and two more rotational players are still awaiting their fate, while Wade has only four players on his roster he knows for certain will be eligible. Wade also does appear to have a few more international players stashed overseas. Wade is pushing the NCAA as far as he can to see how much it will budge, and it’s working. The question is whether it will be worth it in the end.
LSU ran individual workouts rather than team practices over the summer because of its roster uncertainty. In the best-case scenario, this LSU team will still be behind the curve on building chemistry early in the season. In the worst case, Wade may have to get desperate to fill out his roster.
If Wade does get his way, he’ll have a roster headlined by former UCLA and New Mexico star Donovan Dent, former St. John’s star RJ Luis, former UCLA standout Skyy Clark and former Cleveland Cavaliers draft pick Saliou Niang. Pair that with Kentucky transfer Mo Dioubate, former five-star recruit Divine Ugochukwu, and a few other depth pieces Wade added via the portal, and he could have an SEC contender on his hands.
But for now, it’s complicated.
No. 8: Arizona State
New head coach: Randy Bennett
Here’s the variable that makes it easy to believe that Arizona State should be listed above Creighton and NC State on this list; Bennett doesn’t miss the NCAA Tournament, at least not recently. Saint Mary’s went dancing in Bennett’s last five years as head coach, won the WCC regular-season title in four of those years, and ranked in the AP Top 25 at some point in each of those seasons.
Now, Bennett takes on a new challenge at Arizona State and looks to bring the program back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2022-23. Bennett knows leaving Saint Mary’s when he had it rolling is a risk, but he appears intent on taking on the challenge of leading Arizona State back to national relevance.
A Bennett-led team playing in the Big 12 is a fascinating test that will indicate whether his slow-paced, methodical offensive attack that’s often made the whole greater than the sum of the parts will succeed in a Power Five league. The Big 12 is a gauntlet, but Bennett’s teams have more than held their own against power-five teams in recent memory–particularly when Saint Mary’s beat Vanderbilt in an NCAA Tournament game in 2024-25.
Questions remain about whether Arizona State has enough athleticism, talent at the five, and depth, but it’s a Bennett team with a potential star in 6-foot-8 Saint Mary’s transfer Paulius Murauskas. The onus is on Murauskas and Portland transfer Joel Foxwell to make the transition from the WCC to the Big 12, and on its bench pieces to prove that they can play at this level.
Never count a Randy Bennett team out, though.
No. 9: Syracuse
New head coach: Gerry McNamara
McNamara’s return to Syracuse is emotional for everyone involved and would remain so if he takes his alma mater to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2020-21. It’s a crucial juncture for Syracuse as a program as McNamara looks to prove that it can win in the NIL era. If he can, Syracuse could start to resurge into the national conversation again. At this stage, that’s important for a program that’s fighting for relevancy.
If Syracuse is going to do that in year one under McNamara, it’ll be on the back of strong defensive play, toughness, and rebounding. McNamara is anchoring his roster around a strong point-of-attack defender in McNeese transfer Garwey Dual and a top-end shot-blocker in Appalachian State transfer big man Luke Wilson–who was No. 53 in the country in block rate a year ago. It’s also got significant length and athleticism at the two, three and four.
The question is whether McNamara’s first team is talented enough offensively to win games in which it can’t suffocate high-powered offenses. Temple transfer Aiden Tobiason will help with that, but he’ll have a learning curve as he tries to get his own shot against longer, more advanced defenders. Tobiason shot just 31.4% from the field in Temple’s three games against power-five opponents and Memphis and averaged 12.3 points per game in those three outings–which was down from his 15.3 points per game on 48.0% shooting on the season as a whole. The onus will also be on Syracuse sophomore Kiyan Anthony to take a significant step forward after averaging 8.0 points per game on 39.9% shooting from the field as a freshman.
The tournament isn’t out of the question for Syracuse in McNamara’s year one, but a lot has to go right for Syracuse to dance. The path would be easier to envision if Quinnipiac transfer Amarri Monroe is eligible.
No. 10: Boston College
New head coach: Luke Murray
Boston College isn’t last here because it landed Luke Murray and is starting to close the financial gap that’s held it back since NIL began. Murray is intent on changing the narrative surrounding Boston College basketball and intends to win right away.
Murray’s first roster already looks significantly better than Boston College's a year ago, and he appears to have some WAR value based on the work he produced as Dan Hurley’s offensive coordinator over the past five seasons. Murray will have better teams at Boston College as he settles into the job and changes the narrative, but his first team still has a chance.
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Boston College has a potential All-ACC player in Montana transfer Money Williams–who Murray told Basket Under Review has dropped 20 pounds and six percent body fat since arriving at Boston College. Williams isn’t the ACC’s most talented player, but he’s a talented off-the-bounce scorer with a chip on his shoulder to change things at Boston College. With Williams in the game, Boston College is always in the fight.
Murray also appears to believe he’s got a capable supporting cast around Williams with UConn transfer Jacob Furphy, former George Washington big man Luke Hunger–who will take on significant passing responsibility–and Ball State transfer guard Armoni Ziegler. Murray doesn’t have one of the ACC’s most talented teams, but it will be a difficult out and shouldn’t be counted out of being a bubble team.
No. 11: Georgia Tech
New head coach: Scott Cross
With Cross, Georgia Tech instantly got tougher, more fearless, and more connected to its past because Cross intends to honor those who once made this program great. Cross will coach Georgia Tech into a few wins, but the question is whether his team will be talented enough in year one to stay out of the bottom of the ACC. Georgia Tech appears to have increased its resources, but it may be able to take the next step as a spender if Cross shows something in year one.
For now, though, Cross and company aren’t willing to call 2026-27 a rebuilding year for Georgia Tech. They know they won’t be picked anywhere near the top of the league, and they aren’t naive about the possibility that some may pick them last, but they don’t believe that has to define them.
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Cross has a relatively unheralded group headlined by two 20-point-per-game scorers: San Jose State transfer Colby Garland and Lehigh transfer Nasir Whitlock. Georgia Tech’s starting lineup will likely include two former Troy standouts in Victor Valdez and Jackson Fields, who will be messengers for Cross, as well as Georgia Tech returners Kam Craft and Cole Kirouac–who will both need to take significant leaps if the Yellow Jackets are going to surprise.
Cross appears to be the guy at Georgia Tech, but he took the job in a position where a multi-year build may be more realistic than an immediate turnaround.
No. 12: Butler
New head coach: Ronald Nored
It feels like Butler got its guy with Nored–who has extensive experience in the NBA, is a former Butler standout and has as gravitational a personality as any first-year power-five head coach–but Butler is a more difficult job than it was when Nored played. He makes the program cool to follow again and gives it life, but he’s inheriting a program that hasn’t gone dancing since 2017-18–although it would have if not for COVID in 2019-20.
Nored has heated up on the high school recruiting trail and appears to be rapidly improving Butler’s program outlook. The Big East is set to improve significantly, though, and Butler is likely still toward the bottom of the league in spending. In a way, Nored has to pay for the figurative sins of previous Butler coaches.
He does appear to have a roster that will be a thorn in the side of other Big East programs right away, though. He’ll make sure of it.
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Butler has an encouraging starting point with veteran lead guard Jalen Jackson and upperclassman big Drayton Jones opting to stick with the program through the coaching change. Jackson may be Butler’s best player, and if he isn’t, it will likely be Serbian forward Asim Djulovic, who has some pro traits. Nored picked up experienced role players in Ole Miss transfer Eduardo Klafke, The Citadel transfer Christian Moore and Florida Gulf Coast transfer Jordan Ellerbee. Ellerbee could be a dynamic scorer off the bench.
It’s no knock on Nored–who has actually done a nice job landing capable players–but Butler may not be talented enough to go dancing in year one. But with Nored at the helm, that will change after 2026-27.
No. 13: Kansas State
New head coach: Casey Alexander
Kansas State’s placement at the bottom of the list isn’t an indictment of Alexander; rather, it’s an acknowledgment of what he’s up against in year one. Kansas State athletic director Gene Taylor went on the record in the spring, revealing that Alexander was only working with a six-million-dollar player compensation budget–which positions Kansas State as one of the lowest spenders in all of power-conference college basketball. If industry speculation is more than conjecture, at least one Big 12 player makes more than Kansas State’s entire roster. Alexander won’t use money as an excuse, but his coaching allies back him, saying he needs the right resources to get the players needed to compete in the Big 12.
It’s no wonder why Alexander didn’t get Belmont stars Tyler Lundblade, Sam Orme and Drew Scharnowski to follow him to Kansas State. It didn’t make sense for those guys to go, and Alexander had to know that.
As a result, expecting Alexander to have Kansas State in the NCAA Tournament–or anywhere near it–is an unrealistic expectation. Alexander made a name for himself by nailing high school evaluations and insulating Belmont from the impact of the NIL era, but he will have to pull another rabbit out of a hat. If the last few seasons indicated anything, it’s that Alexander shouldn’t be counted out. Still, he’s in a position where a successful year one looks more like winning just enough to overcome donor fatigue and position the program to win in year two.
If Kansas State is going to surprise in year one, it has to get breakout years from returning 6-foot-6 sophomore Andrej Kostic and 6-foot-10 Murray State transfer Brock Vice–who Alexander told the media had a big summer. Alexander has a nice core group of guards in Jaden Schutt, Brandon Rechsteiner, Dez Lindsay, and Montana Wheeler, but there aren't enough true difference-makers to win big without significant steps forward from the rest of the roster.
Even then, a run to the tournament will be difficult.
