The last decade has seen a handful of prominent college basketball head coaches — Jay Wright, John Calipari, Tony Bennett ... Kevin Ollie — capture their first national title.
While the current hierarchy of college hoops front man is saturated with guys who are already or soon to be members of the Hall of Fame, the “next wave” is starting to take shape. With that in mind, Sports Illustrated asked its college hoops writers who they believed would be the next head coach to cut down the nets for the first time.
Eric Single went with Purdue’s Matt Painter, Molly Geary went with the man who came a basket away from breaking through a year ago in Texas Tech’s Chris Beard, and Dan Greene made a lofical pick with Gonzaga’s Mark Few.