ACC Basketball: Ranking all 18 head coaches for 2024-25 season

14. Steve Forbes (Wake Forest)

Forbes has bounced around quite a bit during a coaching career that has spanned 35 years. It’s involved several junior college stops and assistant coaching jobs under Porter Moser, Bruce Pearl, and others. His first D1 head coaching gig was at East Tennessee State and he was outstanding across five seasons, winning 130 games and making the Buccaneers a mid-major power in the SoCon.

He then jumped to Wake Forest in 2020 and is still hunting for that first Big Dance with the Demon Deacons. After a rough initial season, Forbes has had Wake Forest in decent position, with a pair of 20-win seasons and NIT appearances, but he just hasn’t gotten them over the hump to this point. While Wake Forest did tie for 5th in the ACC last season, we’re going to need to see something more from Forbes to move him up this list, even after that great run at ETSU.

13. Mike Young (Virginia Tech)

Certainly no stranger to basketball, Young played at Emory & Henry back in the 80’s and has been a collegiate coach for nearly four decades. Much of that experience came at Wofford, where Young was an assistant for 13 years and then a head coach for 17 years, culminating in a breakthrough season for the Terriers in 2019. He accepted the Virginia Tech job soon after and has been in Blacksburg for the last half decade.

Things started relatively well, as Young’s Hokies made the Big Dance in the first two seasons after the pandemic. Virginia Tech hasn’t been bad by any stretch, but haven’t been as competitive these last few seasons, with twin 19-15 records and NIT trips. Overall, Young has proven that he’s a great coach in his career, but that 1-7 record in the Big Dance isn’t exactly inspiring, even if most of that was from the SoCon. We’ll have to see if the Hokies can breakthrough in the near future.