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

2016: Steve Pikiell (Rutgers)

There are a couple of really good head coaches that we couldn’t quite fit here in 2016. Jamie Dixon has been a revelation at TCU, taking his alma mater to their first two trips to the Big Dance in over three decades. We could also easily have chosen Chris Beard, who took Texas Tech to the national title game, but bowed out after five seasons to lead Texas, which certainly didn’t end well at all. Instead, our focus goes towards the Scarlet Knights because what Pikiell has done has been one of the most impressive coaching jobs in the country.

Pikiell was a point guard at UConn and began his coaching career as an assistant there. He had stints at number of schools on the east coast, most notably at Yale and George Washington. His head coaching career began at Stony Brook in 2005, leading the Seawolves for 11 relatively successful seasons. After leading Stony Brook to the NCAA Tournament in 2016, he was hired by Rutgers, taking over one of the least successful power conference programs in the nation.

Two last-place finishes in the Big Ten weren’t a surprise at the start, but what was a surprise is how Pikiell turned things around after that. The Scarlet Knights won 20 games in the pandemic-shortened season and then made their first NCAA Tournament in 30 years in the following season. He’s led Rutgers to a pair of trips to the Big Dance and watched their bubble burst this past season. Pikiell turning in four straight Tournament-quality seasons at this program in the Big Ten is nothing short of a miracle and speaks volumes to what he’s done here.