This will be a tough decision if Cal retires in the next couple of years. As much as we might think that’s the type of coach our program deserves, there doesn’t appear to be anyone who’s already a surefire hall of famer due to their collection of Final Four banners available. Jay Wright isn’t going to come out of retirement. Brad Stevens and Billy Donovan aren’t leaving the NBA to come back to a college environment that’s much different from how they left it. Dan Hurley probably isn’t going to step away from what appears to be on the verge of becoming a perennial title contender in his home region at his current job. To be honest, I’m not even sure Scott Drew would give up what at this point is probably a lifetime gig at Baylor despite him frequently being assumed to be readily available if we were to call.
That leaves us looking at the tier of candidates who still have something to prove, which is definitely more risky. You might get a young Pitino or Cal (who was an amazing hire at the time even if I think he’s over the hill now), or you might get Gillispie, and there’s no surefire metric for predicting that or else no one would ever hire a flop. That being said, my list would be:
1. Nate Oats- This assumes he would leave Alabama for us, which might not actually be a foregone conclusion, but also doesn’t seem impossible so I’ll include him. Don’t let a couple of close losses in this year’s non-conference schedule convince you he was just a flash in the pan. He’s won the SEC two out of the past three years and currently sits in first place again this year, plays a fun modern style, and recruits at a high level. The only knocks on him are the lack of a tournament run past the Sweet 16 and to some extent the off court stuff from last year. I think he’ll eventually get the former with the kind of teams he’s consistently rolling out. For the latter, I personally don’t view giving too casual of an answer on a delicate subject during a press conference as being the same category as someone like Chris Beard who actually caused the off court problems himself, so I wouldn’t blacklist him over it.
2. Dusty May- He doesn’t have a super long track record, but his teams also play a modern style with good spacing and pace, and you can’t deny that it’s an incredible coaching achievement to have a perennial doormat like Florida Atlantic as a legit top 25 team in back to back years. The biggest question mark is whether he could recruit at the level we expect since he’s not doing that right now albeit with much less in the way of resources and brand recognition to help him. Given the results he’s getting with 3 stars, even a modest improvement in recruiting at a bigger job could pay dividends for him as long as he could get recruits who fit his system though.
3. TJ Otzelberger- A bit more of a wildcard because he has neither a Final Four nor a major conference championship yet, but he’s young and has engineered an impressive turnaround at Iowa State, inheriting a team coming off a 2-22 season and getting them into the tournament in his first year and close to the top 10 by year 3 while playing in likely the best basketball conference in the country during that span. He does play a slower, more defensive oriented style than my other suggestions, which might not sit well with some fans, but you could make an argument that being at Kentucky would give him access to better talent, which would hopefully improve the efficiency.
