10 NCAA Tournament coaches who survived (and thrived) being on the hot seat

It’s almost like America’s second favorite sport.

If your favorite sport is NFL football, your second favorite sport might be “coach on the hot seat.” If it’s college football, No. 2 is “coach on the hot seat.” And it’s the same in college basketball.

And it’s not fun, particularly for the coaches.

And it’s not smart, especially for the teams.

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The 2016 NCAA Tournament includes at least 10 coaches who at one point faced serious fan pressure in regards to their job security, most of them at the school that currently employs them. Those schools that wisely chose to keep their coaches in place — in one case it was an act of administrative genius — have been rewarded for their patience, often many times over.

You want to know how close some of the 2016 NCAA teams came to making big mistakes? Take a glance:
 
 

Year: 1983-84
Record that season: 24-10
Time on job: Four years
NCAA Tournaments since: 32
Record since: 906-204
 
In John Feinstein’s excellent new book, "The Legends Club," he details how ferocious the pressure was upon Coach K — before anybody knew him by his initial — following two losing seasons and a 1-4 start to ACC play in 1984.  Then athletic director Tom Butters saw the tension building for Krzyzewski, as Feinstein writes, so Butters called the coach into his office and acknowledged, “I’ve got an alumni base that doesn’t think I’ve got the right coach.” Then he added, “I’ve got a coach who doesn’t know how good he is and he’s doubting himself.” Butters resolved both issues by presenting Krzyzewski with a five-year contract extension.

“It was an incredible thing for Tom to do,” Krzyzewski told Feinstein. “I told him later it was also a smart thing for him to do.”

Year: 2003-04
Record that season: 18-17
Time on job: Three years
NCAA Tournaments since: 11
Record since: 296-128

After moving over from Hofstra to coach the Wildcats, where he’d been an assistant under Rollie Massimino, Wright recruited Randy Foye, Allan Ray, Curtis Sumpter and Jason Fraser. But the team’s struggles in their sophomore season had many grumbling that Wright wasn’t capable of getting the job done. The following year, the Wildcats reached the Sweet 16 and with Foye and Ray as seniors they tied a loaded UConn team for the Big East championship. Wright has done just fine since.

 

Year: 2005-06
Record that season: 21-11
Time on job: Two years
NCAA Tournaments since: nine
Record since: 270-84

In his second season on the job, the pressure on Miller to reach the NCAA Tournament was so extreme I was challenged regarding his coaching potential during an interview on the city’s largest radio station — on a general talk show, not a sports show — and it was reported during the week of the Atlantic 10 tournament his situation would be evaluated by the Xavier administration after the final game. This was only his second season, and the A-10 tournament was in Cincinnati. But the atmosphere was more of potential doom than possible NCAA bid. The Musketeers made the title game, Justin Doellman and Justin Cage blocked two attempts at game-winners by the Hawks’ Dwayne Lee and Xavier won, 62-61. And Miller progressed to become one of the game’s best coaches.

Year: 2010-11
Record that season: 12-20
Time on job: Three years
NCAA Tournaments since: four
Record since: 118-52

Let’s be honest about this: People didn’t stop agitating about moving on from Crean after the Hoosiers made the NCAAs and reached the Sweet 16 in his fourth season. They didn’t stop after IU won the 2013 Big Ten title and entered the tournament as a No. 1 seed. They surely didn’t stop after the 2014 team missed the tournament and the dissension accelerated with a series of off-court incidents that plagued the subsequent offseason. Indianapolis Star columnist Gregg Doyel called for Crean to be fired that October. The Tom Crean Buyout Clock became a page on the internet. And now? The Hoosiers are the reigning Big Ten Conference champions. The link to the buyout clock now offers congratulations for that achievement.

Year: 2011-12
Record that season: 22-17
Time on job: Nine years
NCAA Tournaments since: three
Record since: 90-45
 
There have been stories about supposed need for Pitt to fire Dixon in every year this decade, including 2011, when the Panthers won the Big East regular season and earned a No. 1 NCAA seed (but lost in the round of 32.) But let’s use the 2011-12 season as the frame of reference because it was the first time the team had a losing conference record under Dixon. Since then the Panthers changed conferences to the ACC, which cost the program a connection to the New York/New Jersey/Philadelphia talent base that had fueled its rise to Big East power. Through that challenging transition Dixon has kept Pitt in NCAA contention each of its three seasons as an ACC member and reached the field twice. With a 328-122 record, two league titles and a league tournament title Dixon is the most accomplished coach in Pitt’s history. And it’s not close.

Year: 2013-14
Record that season: 15-17
Time on job: Nine years
NCAA Tournaments since: two
Record since: 47-21
 
Painter faced less heat than most when his team hit a two-year dry spell – under .500, out of the NCAAs – after six consecutive NCAA appearances and two league titles (one tournament, one regular season) in his first seven years. But there was plenty of discussion about his job security, especially of the “he really should have left for Missouri when he had the chance in 2011” variety. Painter had the courage to publicly admit he’d made some recruiting mistakes particularly in getting away from the defense/toughness culture that had made Purdue work. “You know, it’s not a school district,” he said at Big Ten media day in 2014. “We just have to get more of a Purdue guy.” Painter believed his next group of young players fit the mold, and so they have: P.J. Thompson, Vince Edwards and Dakota Mathias were all recruited that year, and all have contributed.

Year: 2009-10
Record that season: 19-16
Time on job: Four years
NCAA Tournaments since: Six
Record since: 146-60
 
Cronin took over the Bearcats after one year of an interim coach and a 14-month drama in which Bob Huggins’ contract term was allowed to lapse toward zero; that devastated recruiting to the point the Bearcats began Cronin’s first season with only a single scholarship player from the prior season. Having to rebuild from nothing required four difficult seasons, and after the last then-athletic director Mike Thomas made a public statement of support, promising he’d be the coach “next year.” Cincinnati made the NCAAs the next year, and every year since.

Year: 2013-14
Record that season: 24-13
Time on job: Three years
NCAA Tournaments since: one
Record since: 41-25
 
When Martin was in his third season on the job, previous Volunteers coach Bruce Pearl was nearing the end of his show-cause penalty and likely to be a candidate for open jobs in the spring of 2014. So a group of Tennessee fans decided: Why not ours? An online petition drive was launched, and more than 10,000 fans signed to support the removal of Martin and the return of Pearl.

Martin fouled that campaign by leading Tennessee into the NCAAs and to a surprising Sweet 16 appearance. And then he left for California, where he recruited top-10 prospects Jaylen Brown and Ivan Rabb and led the Bears to the NCAAs in his second year. (Pearl wound up at Auburn).

Year: 2014-15
Record that season: 16-15
Time on job: Five years
NCAA Tournaments since: one
Record since: 25-8

One of the wiser coaching decisions made by any program recently was Seton Hall’s retention of Willard after a fifth year of rebuilding did not produce an NCAA Tournament bid. When last year’s team dissolved into dissension, Steve Politi of the Newark Star-Ledger wrote a column that compared the Pirates’ state to the chaos of Bobby Gonzalez’ final days. (It’s one thing to wonder if a coach should be on the hot seat, but that’s just mean, right?).

Seton Hall held firm and kept Willard another season and was rewarded with its first Big East Tournament championship in more than two decades and a No. 6 seed in the NCAAs.
 

Year: 2013-14
Record that season: 23-12
Time on job: Three years
NCAA Tournaments since: one
Record since: 43-22
 
Many Missouri fans were angry from the day Haith was hired in 2011, and that only abated temporarily after his first team won 30 games and the Big 12 Tournament title and earned a No. 2 NCAA Tournament seed. (Temporarily because the Tigers then lost to a 15 seed in the first round). His next two teams lacked chemistry and the fan anger escalated to the point Haith wisely looked for a better situation — and found Tulsa, which has won 20 or more games in each of his two seasons. Now, Tulsa’s selection to the 2016 NCAA field may be as difficult to defend as any in tournament history — “I don’t even know what to say,” ESPN bracket analyst Joe Lunardi wrote — but they are in there. And Missouri just got done winning 10 games. For the whole season.