NCAA Basketball: Indiana, Illinois, Virginia Tech, Maryland headline Sunday Mailbag

What other coaches are on the hot seat? – Bryan Mauro (@threecolorbeard)

The season is still young and this list can always change but right now on December 5, 2021, the list of coaches who are absolutely on the hot seat are as follows:  Bobby Hurley at Arizona State, Jeff Capel at Pittsburgh, Cuonzo Martin at Missouri, Mike Hopkins at Washington and Chris Collins at Northwestern.

Hurley had Arizona State playing really well when he first began his stint in Tempe but the magic has wore off and the Sun Devils are on the verge of two very disappointing seasons. Arizona State currently sits at 2-6 and the last time they took the floor they scored 26 points the entire game and got blasted by Washington State.

Capel has never been able to turn Pitt around after former coach Kevin Stallings left him with nothing. Lets face it, the Panthers are a dumpster fire right now, and they have so many injuries and suspensions that they are likely not going to be good at all this year. The recruiting is starting to suffer for the Panthers. There is no way they can justify keeping coach Capel.

Coach Martin is a great guy who has been coaching for a long time. He has not done a great job at Missouri overall, sans the surprise run to the NCAA tournament last season. That team lost a ton of bodies to transfer and this year has been a rocky start for Missouri. The last time out on the floor the Tigers got ran out of their own gym by Liberty. The Flames are a good team but should not be crushing Missouri at home.

Hopkins should be in a class all of his own. He took one of the premier programs in the Pac 12 and the country at the time and turned them into one of the worst Power 5 schools in the country. Washington struggles to beat non power 5 opponents at this point and Hopkins has stopped bringing in key recruits.

Coach Collins is a little bit different. He is responsible for the first NCAA tournament appearance in Northwestern history and the team even won a game. The years around that tournament appearance and after have not been great and it looks like the same Northwestern of old. Collins is the most successful coach in program history so he is likely going to be able to set his own retirement date but Northwestern can do better and should think about changing directions as the Collins hire doesn’t seem to be working anymore.

These should all be taken with a grain of salt as the calendar says December 5, 2021 and there is still a long way to go in the season to determine if these coaches can still keep their jobs.