Jeff Goodman completely disrespects Michael Malone with coaching hire rankings

The coaching carousel wasn’t quite as active as some expected it to be this offseason in college basketball, but there was still some major movement to reconfigure the landscape. The most notable move came in Chapel Hill with Michael Malone, surprisingly, replacing Hubert Davis as the head coach of the Tar Heels. 

According to Jeff Goodman of the Field of 68, however, Malone’s hiring wasn’t the best move of the offseason. With the Transfer Portal and roster movement largely settled, Goodman named his five best hires of the offseason, slotting Bryan Hodgson, who went from USF to Providence at No. 1, and leaving Malone off the list altogether. 

Maybe most laughable to UNC fans is No. 3 on the list: former NC State head coach Will Wade, who ditched the Wolfpack for a return to LSU. 

Michael Malone left off Jeff Goodman’s list of best coaching hires

Now, this is not to advocate for Malone to claim the top spot. The former NBA champion has never been a head coach in college basketball, and the move appeared to be born out of panic on the cusp of the transfer portal window, with Billy Donovan content to coach out the rest of the season for the Chicago Bulls. 

UNC whiffed in its pursuits of Dusty May and Tommy Lloyd, and pivoted away from rising college basketball coaches like Mark Byington or Ben McCollum. It wasn’t a cleanly executed process, and did not yield the preferred result, but if you’re going to hire a first-time college basketball head coach, you’d probably prefer to have Malone, who has won 510 games and a championship in the NBA, to Justin Joyner, the 38-year-old assistant Oregon State hired off Dusty May’s staff. 

You’d also probably prefer him to Wade, who once left LSU embroiled in scandal, though for actions that are now and should have been legal, but who nearly missed the NCAA Tournament in his lone season at NC State. Though his 2018-19 LSU Tigers, which won the regular season SEC Title, ultimately reached the Sweet 16, he was suspended from the program, and has never coached a team to the second weekend of The Big Dance. 

Compared to the rumored possibilities of May, Lloyd, and Donovan, Malone felt like something of a letdown. Compared to Hodgson, Randy Bennett, Wade, Jerrod Calhoun, and Joyner, Malone is undeniably a more proven coach, and a hire that wouldn’t have been possible for those other programs.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow