NCAA Basketball: Stevens, Huggins among top head coaching hires of 2007
By Joey Loose
Take yourselves back to the year 2007. Florida successfully defended their title and won their second NCAA Basketball Tournament championship, putting head coach Billy Donovan in rarified air. It was a season that saw names like Kevin Durant and Greg Oden rise on draft boards, while players like Acie Law IV, Chris Lofton, and Alando Tucker also made a significant impact on the season. Additionally, future national champion coach Tony Bennett took home most of the coach of the year awards.
Another college basketball season came to an end, meaning it was time for change at quite a few programs. Head coaching changes began to happen, with quite the domino effect taking place as the hires began to be made. What started with openings at schools like Arkansas, Iowa, and Michigan grew as openings emerged at Kentucky, Wake Forest, and West Virginia.
It’s been said time and time again but we’ll say it again: hiring the right head coach is an extremely important process. For comparison’s sake, imagine how different Duke basketball would be if they hadn’t taken a flyer on that young coach at Army? All programs need to make the right hire for the sake of their programs.
We’ll be taking a look back at some of the decisions made in 2007 and reflect on the best coaching hires from that offseason. We’ll only be documenting ten of those hires, which sadly means we’ll be missing out on a look of good moves; 2007 was a fantastic year for coaching hires.
Let’s get right into the list, with ten impressive hires to run through.