Take yourselves back to the year 2002. Juan Dixon and the Maryland Terrapins have just won their first national championship, cementing the legacy of coach Gary Williams. Back then, it was names like Drew Gooden, David West, and Jason Williams who were stars of the NCAA Basketball game long before their NBA careers would begin. Times were so wild that the coach of the year was Ben Howland, back when he was still at Pittsburgh.
As the 2002 season came to an end, changes were made to several programs. There are coaches who were fired for poor performance, or retired after long careers, or of course jumped at the chance to lead other programs. There were openings at several intriguing schools, including Arkansas, Florida State, and West Virginia among others.
The importance of a good head coach cannot be understated, especially for a program that has been struggling in recent years. It’s equally important for a successful team to hire the right guy to take the baton and maintain the trajectory of the program. With these thoughts in mind, we’re going to dive into some of those coaching hires made in 2002. We’ll be looking closely at these hires and identifying the ten best from that cycle of the coaching carousel. Obviously, not every hire can be noticed, especially not all the good ones, but we’ll do our best to identify the ten that stood out.
Let’s get right into the list, running through these coaching hires from nineteen years ago.
10. Jerry Wainwright (Richmond)
There’s never really been a time when Richmond was considered one of the best programs in the nation, but that’s not to say the Spiders haven’t had their runs of success. In 2002, they watched West Virginia poach John Beilein and needed a new voice to keep this program headed in the right direction. Much like with Beilein five years earlier, they found a coach with head coaching experience.
Jerry Wainwright had already been around the game of basketball for more than three decades, with much of that early experience coming at the high school level. He spent a decade on the coaching staffs at Xavier and Wake Forest before getting his first collegiate head coaching job at UNC Wilmington. He led the Seahawks to a pair of NCAA Tournaments in his eight years at the school and was more than ready for the step up at Richmond.
Wainwright didn’t revolutionize Richmond basketball nor did he make the Spiders a household name, but he put forth three solid seasons for a program that had only recently joined the A-10. His first season ended in the NIT while year two’s success led the Spiders back to the NCAA Tournament. Wainwright won just 54% of his games at the school but sustained the success of the program before departing for DePaul in 2005.
9. Jeff Capel III (VCU)
Programs change over time; this is something we’ve seen time and time again. VCU wasn’t a bad program two decades ago, but were certainly not a top-tier mid-major program, nor were they even in the A-10 yet. In 2002, needing to replace Mack McCarthy, who had done decent work across four years, the Rams hadn’t sniffed the NCAA Tournament in six years and were certainly not a regular participant.
The decision was made to promote young assistant Jeff Capel III to the top job. Capel had played at Duke under Mike Krzyzewski less than a decade earlier and was really only beginning his coaching career. After a very brief international playing career, he served under his father as an assistant at Old Dominion before spending a year on the VCU staff. The Rams took a chance on a raw young coach and he set them on the path towards greatness.
In his four seasons at the helm, VCU won nearly 70% of their CAA conference games, winning the regular season and tournament titles in 2004. Capel won 79 games in his four seasons and got the Rams back to the NCAA Tournament. Successors like Anthony Grant and Shaka Smart would build on this success, but Capel certainly helped lay the framework in establishing this program. Meanwhile, Capel departed for Oklahoma to make headlines with Blake Griffin several years later.
8. Will Brown (Albany)
One of the trickiest aspects of head coaching searches is what happens when a coach is fired midseason or just before it begins. This Albany program was still in relative infancy as a D1 program when Scott Beeten was cast aside after a 1-7 start. As the offseason began in 2002, the Great Danes could have gone in any number of directions to steady the basketball program, but decided to let that interim coach take control of the program.
Will Brown was very inexperience by the time he became Albany’s interim head coach, especially at the D1 level. He played at Dowling and spent time coaching at Saint Rose and Sullivan County CC, all smaller colleges in the state of New York. He’d join Beeten’s coaching staff in 2001, but rode that bench for only eight games before being thrust into the head coaching job at the age of 30.
In the long run, Brown’s promotion was a great call for the Great Danes. By 2006, Brown had led Albany to their first NCAA Tournament appearance. In his twenty years in charge, he led the Great Danes to five total NCAA Tourney bids and had one of the best programs in the America East since the turn of the century. Progress became slow in recent years, leading to Brown’s firing this offseason, but there’s no denying his importance to Albany basketball.
7. Billy Gillispie (UTEP)
For nearly four decades, Don Haskins built a legendary run of success at UTEP, highlighted by the national championship run way back in 1966, near the beginning of his tenure. By the time of his retirement in 1999, these Miners weren’t quite the success story any more, struggling under successor Jason Rabedeaux as well. Fortunately, with their coaching hire in 2002 they got the program back on track.
Billy Gillispie had plenty of experience in college ball and in Texas in recent years. He was a longtime high school coach in the state and had spent time on the Baylor coaching staff. For the last five years, Gillispie had been on Bill Self’s coaching staff at Tulsa and then Illinois. UTEP would be his first collegiate head coaching job and he was certainly ready.
Rebuilding the program wasn’t going to happen overnight, leading to a 6-24 debut, but it was all about what came next for this Miners program. UTEP had an incredible turnaround in 2004, winning 24 games and make their first NCAA Tournament in a dozen years. Gillispie departed for Texas A&M soon after the season ended, but left the program in solid shape, building success that would be continued by his successor for the next half-decade.
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.
5. Mike Anderson (UAB)
When you consider just how UAB athletics came into being, their successes early on are even more impressive. Up until 2002, Gene Bartow and later son Murry led this program to tons of initial success, leading the Blazers to join Conference USA and become one of basketball’s more interesting stories. However, the younger Bartow was cast aside as the program began to struggle and a new voice was needed.
For Mike Anderson, UAB was his first shot to run his own program. He had spent the entirety of his career playing and working under the great Nolan Richardson. After playing under him at Tulsa, he later following him to Arkansas as an assistant, playing a big role on the 1994 team winning the national championship. Anderson had even spent two games as interim head coach after Richardson was dismissed in 2002.
UAB was dynamic under Anderson, winning at least 21 games in each of his four seasons leading the program. The Blazers made three straight NCAA Tournament appearances, including a Sweet Sixteen run in 2004 as a 9-seed. He got UAB back on track and took the Missouri job just after the conclusion of the 2006 season, winning three NCAA Tournament games in total in his four years in Birmingham.
4. Lorenzo Romar (Washington)
By 2002, there wasn’t much to be excited about at Washington. The program had a meager history, with a few successful seasons but not a big run of success across their history. They also hadn’t won more than 11 games in any of the last three seasons, leading to coach Bob Bender getting cast aside. The Huskies needed a new voice to propel the program forward and they certainly got that with Lorenzo Romar.
Himself a former Huskies player, Romar had spent parts of five seasons in the NBA before beginning his coaching career. He was on Jim Harrick’s staff at UCLA when the Bruins won the national championship in 1995. He spent three years each as head coach at Pepperdine and Saint Louis, leading the Billikens to the NCAA Tournament and making considerable progress with both programs. With experience all over the board, he was ready to take over this Washington program and considerable increased the Huskie’s basketball history.
Romar immediately got this program back into shape, making his first of six NCAA Tournament runs in just his second season. In all, he led Washington to three Sweet Sixteens and won a pair of Pac-10 regular-season titles in the process. Progress slowed even with great recruiting near the end of his tenure, but his impact can certainly still be felt on Washington basketball. Today, Romar is back at Pepperdine while Washington is still struggling for consistency.
3. Mike Young (Wofford)
There really wasn’t much to talk about when bringing up Wofford basketball back in the day. The Terriers had only been a D1 program for five years by the time they were looking for a new coach in 2002. A new voice was needed to lead this program to D1 success and they really didn’t have to look very far.
Mike Young was promoted to head coach, having spent the last thirteen years on the Wofford staff. He didn’t have a ton of experience prior to coming to Wofford, and this was his first head coaching job. He had been on staff at Emory & Henry, his alma mater, and also Radford, but leading the Terriers was his big first challenge.
Across 17 years leading the Terriers, Young built a great program. He led Wofford to their first five NCAA Tournament appearances, with the highlight being in his final season in 2019, with the Terriers winning their first NCAA Tournament game and a program-record 30 total games. Young made Wofford one of the SoCon’s best programs after three decades of hardwork before finally departing for Virginia Tech in 2019.
2. John Beilein (West Virginia)
For more than two decades, Gale Catlett led the Mountaineers to a whole host of victories and postseason appearances, but it was time to find a new leader by 2002. The program had been struggling in recent years, having missed the last four NCAA Tournaments, and had just landed in the basement of the Big East.
The keys to the program were turned over to John Beilein, a coach who had already bounced around at several colleges as head coach. A former high school and junior college coach, he spent five years apiece at the D1 level at both Canisius and Richmond. He led Canisius to their first NCAA Tournament in nearly forty years and won a Tournament game with the Spiders a few years later. Beilein was more than ready to take over a power conference program.
After several years of struggle, West Virginia became a top-level program again, thanks to the five years Beilein put in with the program. By his third season, he had led the Mountaineers to the Elite Eight, following that up with a trip to the Sweet Sixteen and an NIT championship. Beilein would have likely ended up higher on this list, but departed for Michigan in 2007, where he’d make an even more impressive legacy. Meanwhile, Beilein’s successor at West Virginia has certainly done a solid job.
1. Leonard Hamilton (Florida State)
Florida State has had some solid moments in their history, but this Seminoles program wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders by the time 2002 rolled around. Each of the last nine seasons had featured double-digit losses in ACC play, and this certainly wasn’t a perennial postseason contender. Former Roy Williams aide Steve Robinson was relieved, leaving the program with an important coaching search that they nailed.
Leonard Hamilton was already an established coach by the time he took over at Florida State. He had spent a dozen years on staff at Kentucky before head coaching stints at both Oklahoma State and Miami-Florida. After leading the Hurricanes to the Sweet Sixteen, he took over as coach of the Washington Wizards, but his stint in the NBA was very brief.
Hamilton has spent 19 years rewriting history books at Florida State and has most recently turned the Seminoles into one of the ACC’s best programs. He’s taken the team to eight NCAA Tournaments and as far as the second weekend in each of the last three tournaments, with 2018’s Elite Eight run the crown jewel. Hamilton’s responsible for a great level of success with the Seminoles and has remained on top of his game these last few seasons, cementing him as the best coaching hire from 2002.
We’ve finished our deep dive into the best coaching hires from 2002; which of these coaches have made the greatest impact on these programs?