52. Niko Medved (Colorado State)
1 NCAA Tournament (0-1)
A native of Minnesota, Medved had brief experience with the Golden Gophers as an assistant coach, but has built quite the name for himself as a head coach in recent years. He began great rebuilds at both Furman and Drake, though he departed the Bulldogs after just one season to take over at Colorado State. Leading the Rams since 2018, Medved is off to his second trip to the Big Dance in his fourth 20-win campaign with Colorado State, turning them back into a power in the MWC.
51. Matt Langel (Colgate)
4 NCAA Tournaments (0-4)
Langel has Fran Dunphy to thank for his successful career, as he got his start as a player and assistant under him at Penn. He’d follow Dunphy to Temple before beginning his head coaching career at Colgate in 2011. After rebuilding the Raiders program in his first few seasons, Langel has created a monster. Colgate has won the last six regular season titles and just won a fifth Patriot League Tournament in six years. Discounting the year lost to the pandemic, Langel has now led Colgate to five straight NCAA Tournaments.
50. Kyle Smith (Washington State)
0 NCAA Tournaments
Considered one of the smartest people in college basketball, Smith got his start in coaching three decades ago on staff at San Diego. After a long stint with Randy Bennett at Saint Mary’s, he got to work as a head coach, engineering turnarounds at Columbia and San Francisco. Washington State brought him to town back in 2019 and Smith has now led the Cougars to their first NCAA Tournament in sixteen years. It’s taken 14 years for Smith to taste the Big Dance as a head coach and it’s a well-deserved payoff.
49. Steve Lutz (Western Kentucky)
2 NCAA Tournaments (1-2)
Suffice to say it’s been a great head coaching career for Lutz to this point. A native of San Antonio, he served as a D1 assistant for more than twenty years, with times at Stephen F. Austin, SMU, Creighton, and Purdue. Lutz was hired in 2021 at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi and took the Islanders to a pair of Southland Tournament titles. That success included a win in the First Four and got him the Western Kentucky job last year. Lutz is now three-for-three, taking the Hilltoppers to a CUSA Tournament title in year one.