NCAA Basketball: Best head coaching hire from each of last 25 seasons

2014: Kelvin Sampson (Houston)

Two hires float to the top this time around, with all due respect to what Chris Holtmann and Buzz Williams did at their previous jobs. Bruce Pearl had been out of coaching for three seasons after NCAA violations at Tennessee but found his way back into the game at Auburn, redefining what basketball meant and leading the Tigers to their first-ever Final Four. However, it’s not enough to top what Sampson has done at Houston these past nine seasons.

Sampson was in a very similar boat to Pearl back in 2014. A former head coach at Montana Tech, Washington State, and Oklahoma, his tenure at Indiana had come undone from recruiting scandals and Sampson spent six years out of the college game, with time on a few NBA staffs. He had previously led Oklahoma to the Final Four way back in 2002 and was taking over a Houston program that was devoid of success since the days of Phi Slamma Jama nearly three decades earlier.

Houston won 22 games by his second season at the helm, and has turned from an afterthought into national title threat just a few years later. The Cougars were by far the best program in the AAC for the last half-decade, advancing to the Final Four in 2021 and to at least the Sweet Sixteen in each of the last four NCAA Tournaments. Houston was ranked #1 for a decent portion of this past season and has averaged nearly 30 wins a year since 2018, punctuating Sampson’s incredible turnaround at the school.