NCAA Basketball rewind: Most impactful coaching hires after 2013 season

4. Steve Alford (UCLA)

When you consider the program’s history, it’s easy to understand why expectations are so high at UCLA. We’re long past John Wooden’s dominance of college basketball, but their place in the history books cannot be denied. This Blue Blood program has struggled with consistency in the decades since that dominance and were again looking for a new head coach in 2013, even after Ben Howland had led the Bruins to three Final Fours.

Steve Alford had been successful at each of his first four head coaching stops. He had great success at the D3 level with Manchester and took Missouri State to the Sweet Sixteen. While his time leading Iowa hadn’t quite met the mark, he had just done six impressive years building New Mexico into the best program in the Mountain West, winning at least 28 games in three of the last four years. The former Indiana player was ready for another shot at the power conference level.

Alford did solid work in five and a half years with the Bruins, even if it wasn’t enough in the end. He took UCLA to three Sweet Sixteens in his first four seasons, finishing in the top 4 of the Pac-12 in all but one of his seasons in control. Alford was let go in December 2018 and has bounced back with Nevada. Though he didn’t quite reach the consistency that UCLA fans expect, there’s nothing wrong with three Sweet Sixteens; a great number of programs around the country would take that without hesitation.