NCAA Basketball: Top 10 head coaching hires from the year 2002

6. Kermit Davis (Middle Tennessee)

Over the years, Middle Tennessee had made a handful of Tourney appearances, but by 2002 the program was in less than stellar shape. Their most recent NCAA Tournament bid had been in 1989 and they program had struggled in their first two years since joining the Sun Belt. Getting the team back into shape was a big task for the next head coach and its certainly something he could handle.

Kermit Davis already had plenty of experience by the time the Blue Raiders hired him that offseason. He had spent two stints as head coach at Idaho plus a brief one year stop leading Texas A&M. He’d spent time coaching at the junior college level and has recently spent five years as an assistant on staff at LSU. Despite all that jumping around, he had only spent four seasons as a D1 head coach, though that number would sharply rise very soon.

Davis would spend 16 years helming this Middle Tennessee program and there would certainly be some breakthroughs. It took until 2011 to get the Blue Raiders back to the NCAA Tournament, but the best success would come in his later years. Davis led Middle Tennessee to NCAA Tournament victories in both 2016 and 2017, with the former being a big upset win over 2-seed Michigan State. Davis accepted the head coaching job at Ole Miss in 2018 and the program has struggled mightily since his exit.