Big Ten Basketball: Ranking all 18 head coaches for 2024-25 season
By Joey Loose
4. Eric Musselman (USC)
Musselman has truly bounced around in his coaching career, with stints in the NBA, G-League, CBA, and at the college level. The former head coach of the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings returns to California by taking over this USC program, though he was previously dominant as head coach at Nevada. He won a ton of games with the Wolf Pack before his most recent tenure at Arkansas.
After a Sweet Sixteen with Nevada, Musselman would lead the Razorbacks to two Elite Eight’s and a Sweet Sixteen in his five-year stint. While last season was a lame finish for Arkansas, Musselman has been elite less than a decade into his collegiate head coaching career. The former NBA coach has a new challenge at USC and hopes to make this a smooth transition from the Pac-12. Expect big things for the Trojans in the years to come, especially with the way Musselman uses the Transfer Portal.
3. Mick Cronin (UCLA)
Though UCLA’s campus hasn’t exactly gone anywhere, Cronin begins life in the Big Ten, putting him far closer to his roots. Born in Cincinnati, Cronin attended and coached with the Bearcats under Bob Huggins and also aided Rick Pitino at Louisville. He had a decent start to his head coaching career at Murray State before making nine straight NCAA Tournaments as Cincinnati’s head coach.
That streak broke when he left for UCLA in 2019, and it’s been a mostly fruitful stint for Cronin on the West Coast. In just his second season he took the Bruins to the Final Four as an 11-seed, making exactly the kind of run he never achieved with the Bearcats. He followed that success with two straight Sweet Sixteen’s, though last year’s team missed the postseason entirely. Cronin can’t be negatively judged based on last season’s young roster; he’s been a winner at every stop.