Big Ten Basketball: Ranking all 18 head coaches for 2024-25 season
By Joey Loose
16. Mike Rhoades (Penn State)
Already a D1 head coach for an entire decade, Rhoades’ head coaching experience actually expands much further than that, as he had a fruitful 10-year run leading Randolph-Macon at the D2 level. He was an assistant at VCU during the program’s Final Four run in 2011 and did decent work as head coach at both Rice and VCU.
Before taking the Penn State job last offseason, Rhoades won a pair ofA-10 titles and led the Rams to three NCAA Tournaments. He’s hoping that success translates to Penn State, though that’s a difficult task with the Nittany Lions. What can be classed as a rebuilding year saw the Nittany Lions near the middle of the pack, tying for 9th in the conference. Rhoades has won a lot of games, but we’ve yet to see what he can do at the power conference level.
15. Mike Woodson (Indiana)
Woodson starred at Indiana back in the late 70’s, but had not been a part of college basketball for forty years after he was drafted in 1980. After a long NBA career, he’s been an NBA coach for quite a long time, including stints leading the Atlanta Hawks and New York Knicks. Regardless, Woodson accepted the task of rebuilding success at his alma mater back in 2021.
He’s been relatively successful initially, though the job is far from done. He led the Hoosiers to the NCAA Tournament in his first two seasons and even won a Tourney game in year two, though Indiana has their sights set on much deeper postseason runs. Indiana tied for 6th in the conference and missed out on the Big Dance this season, but with the transfers and recruits lining up nicely, next year better be special in Bloomington.