NCAA Basketball: 5 head coaches that need to win now in 2021-22 season

Bobby Hurley (Arizona State)

This is unintentional, but there’s a strange theme developing among the names on this list, which are presented alphabetically. Hurley learned and played under Mike Krzyzewski, winning a pair of titles before a five-year NBA career. He got into coaching on his brother Dan’s staffs at Wagner and Rhode Island before beginning his head coaching career at Buffalo. After two very solid seasons with the Bulls, he was hired by Arizona State back in 2015.

Prior to this past year’s NCAA Tournament, the Pac-12 hasn’t exactly lived up to its power conference billing, and Hurley’s Arizona State teams have had some success in recent years in the league. He took the Sun Devils to NCAA Tournament bids in 2018 and 2019, though failed to win a Tourney game either trip. He followed that up with a 3rd place finish in 2020, but the program took a big step backward this past season, finishing just 11-14 after some big expectations.

A year ago, Hurley was seen as a recruiting wizard, had knocked off #1 Kansas, and led the Sun Devils to continued success, but things have a way of changing in a hurry. Several Pac-12 teams had fantastic runs in last year’s NCAA Tournament and now the Sun Devils were picked to finish just 7th in the league. It’s likely too early to say that Hurley’s job is in danger, but he’s yet to win an NCAA Tournament game with some pretty strong talent. The Pac-12 is getting stronger and Arizona State can’t afford to fall into one of those lower tiers again.