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

2017: Brian Dutcher (San Diego State)

2017 saw Brad Underwood head to Illinois and Chris Holtmann head to Ohio State, but recent events have proven that it was an MWC team (not a Big Ten one) that made the best coaching hire from just six years ago.

Dutcher was the son of a head coach, as his father Jim had been the head man at Minnesota during his own college days. He was a graduate assistant at Illinois and briefly an assistant elsewhere before joining the coaching staff at Michigan. He’d spent most of the next three decades as an assistant to Steve Fisher at both Michigan and San Diego State, playing a major role in each program’s recruiting efforts, bringing in the Fab Five, Kawhi Leonard, and a number of other notable players.

Fisher retired in 2017 and Dutcher started his head coaching career with the Aztecs and has been exceptional. In his third season, the Aztecs finished 30-2 before the pandemic ended their season before the NCAA Tournament, with legit hopes at a deep postseason run. Dutcher has led San Diego State to four NCAA Tournaments and go this chance at a deep run, leading the Aztecs all the way to the national title game this past April. His hard work for more than two decades at this school really paid off, even if the Aztecs came up short in the championship game.