The rule for this week’s thought exercise was simple: five coaches, five grades on the A-through-F scale.
Of course, not all gigs are created equal, and the weight of expectations is a different beast. For a program like UConn or Duke, any season that ends without a championship can ring a bit hollow. For a first-year coach like Bucky McMillan at Texas A&M, one could argue that the Aggies could fall apart in the SEC race, miss 28 treys in a first-round tourney loss and the 2025-26 season would still, by any objective rating by a computer or a human, be a rounding success.
With context, situation and the financials in mind, let’s dive in.
A: Fred Hoiberg, Nebraska
Hoiberg has long been a wizard on the whiteboard, but this is his finest work yet. Nebraska has zoomed from preseason No. 51 on KenPom all the way up to No. 12, solidifying itself as a legitimate Final Four contender with gutty road wins over Indiana, Illinois and Ohio State. Hoiberg is engineering hands down the best season in Nebraska basketball history, largely thanks to excellent player development and massive roster-building wins on the margins. Braden Frager was a three-star recruit who has transformed into one of the top sixth men in all of college basketball. Pryce Sandfort was just a solid role player at Iowa; he has blossomed into one of the elite shot-makers in college basketball. Jamarques Lawrence left Nebraska for more opportunity at Rhode Island, but he is playing the best basketball of his career in his return to Lincoln. Former walk-on Sam Hoiberg is one of the Big Ten’s best defensive players and should be in the running for the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
Nebraska’s gorgeous offense orbits around big man Rienk Mast. The tough-as-nails forward has found his All-Big Ten form after missing all of last year with a gutting knee injury. The Dutchman might not be able to win a 100-meter sprint, but he can pass the leather off it and shoot the lights out from downtown.
Most importantly, this team is a batch of steely, cold assassins who have taken on the personality of their head coach. In the middle of the heat, Nebraska has kept its cool repeatedly. Conversely, when the Huskers are sluggish in the tundra that is Minnesota in late January, Hoiberg has the fire to rally the troops to erase an eight-point, second-half deficit.
Nebraska has infamously never won an NCAA Tournament game. Hoiberg has a team that can change that, but these Huskers are dreaming of so much more.
Also considered: Bucky McMillan, Texas A&M
B: Will Wade, NC State
Wade entered the fray in Raleigh, raring to go.
“Everybody’s singing from the same sheet of music,” Wade said during his opening press conference. “When that happens at NC State, there’s going to be a reckoning for the ACC, there’s going to be a reckoning for college basketball. And it’s coming. And it’s coming soon.”
Heard, chef.
Then came the portal where NC State outbid Kansas for coveted Texas Tech transfer Darrion Williams to headline the ACC’s second-best transfer haul.
Then came the preseason hype from every nook and cranny of basketball Twitter. Amazingly, that died down in a hurry when the defense went MIA in Maui, allowing 102 to Texas and 85 to a Seton Hall group that sometimes tries to win games by scoring 38 points.
And yet, the Pack never folded and has slowly gotten better and better. NC State sits 17-6 overall and 8-2 in ACC play after reeling off five-straight wins, including two barn-burner roadkills over good clubs in Clemson and SMU. NC State has gone from out of the tournament picture in mid-December to angling for seeding in early February. Oh, and it can still dream of chasing the ACC championship.
This team’s hiccups at multiple levels defensively may keep it from cruising into the upper echelon, but they have also proven Wade right.
“I want to be very clear: This is not a rebuild,” Wade said in that famous presser. “We’re going to be in the top part of the ACC next year, and we’re going to the NCAA tournament.”
Also considered: Kevin Willard, Villanova
C: Mark Pope, Kentucky
The moral of the story in Lexington is that it’s never as good as it might seem or as bad as one might assume. The preseason hype around this team has proven to be too lofty. The dumpster fire claims surrounding this team show the opposite side of the coin.
So swings the pendulum with a rabid fanbase who just so desperately wants to hang banner No. 9.
This Kentucky team isn’t going to win the title. It took too many risks in free agency, that much is clear. Signing ballyhooed Arizona State transfer Jayden Quaintance, knowing full well he faced a long road to recovery after a torn ACL, was a bit too aggressive. It also had a few too many miscalculations. In retrospect, Sam Houston State transfer Lamar Wilkerson would’ve been worth every penny for his snug fit in this scheme. Instead, Indiana gets to enjoy Wilkerson’s barrage of buckets. It also got unlucky with a preseason injury to point guard Jaland Lowe that sent everything into a tizzy.
But these ‘Cats also deserve some credit for getting back up off the mat. Pope has found a rotation that works, and Kentucky is finally shooting the basketball like Pope envisioned in the summer. The ‘Cats are shooting a sizzling 36% from 3-point range amid a 7-3 start in league play. That ranks second-best in the SEC. Maybe most importantly, Otega Oweh is playing up to his Preseason Player of the Year abilities again, and freshman big man Malachi Moreno is so clearly going to be a beast … in time.
The much-maligned Pope took his earned share of arrows for a disastrous start, but he’s kept Kentucky from careening off the road into the abyss. Kentucky isn’t a top-10 team, but it will make the NCAA Tournament, and with the right draw, it could make the second weekend.
Also considered: Darian DeVries, Indiana
D: Kim English, Providence
Providence had real money to make hay in the portal. It threw bags at proven veterans — i.e., Vanderbilt’s Jason Edwards, Georgia Tech’s Duncan Powell and UCF’s Jaylin Sellers — to buff up an offense that was anemic for long stretches in 2024-25.
English’s roster-building vision was clear: Vets who can score + high-upside freshmen + defense-first returners = NCAA Tournament recipe.
It’s coalesced into … something.
The Friars are No. 1 in any League Pass Watchability scale. Providence is up to five overtime games this year after a wild, double-overtime win over Butler on Wednesday. They don’t turn it over or take the ball away, so the action ping-pongs back and forth with plenty of shot-makers, high-level athletes and not a lick of defense to be found. English had built some analytically savvy defenses in the past, but this group can’t guard one action, let alone multiple, without making a back-breaking mistake.
Providence has also shown its top-shelf appeal when it rallied to knock off St. John’s at Madison Square Garden, but that’s a double-edged sword because it makes a 10-13 record (3-9 in the Big East) all the more infuriating to the Friar faithful.
English deserves some kudos for accumulating this talent, and Providence has suffered some heartbreaking, flip-a-coin losses that will sting for weeks. But this group has too many good players to be three games under .500. Sellers is a stud. Stefan Vaaks is a promising freshman who can light it up. Jamier Jones is a difference-maker when he’s dialed in. Edwards, when healthy, is a threat to score 25 every night.
Others have done more with less.
Also considered: Scott Drew, Baylor
F: Jerome Tang, Kansas State
Another year, another massive Kansas State budget. Another year, another massive Kansas State disappointment. Tang is eyeing down the reality of a third straight season without a NCAA Tournament appearance despite having stuffed NIL coffers that many would envy.
Kansas State sits at 10-12 overall and is tied for dead last in the Big 12, but somehow, it’s gone from bad to worse in the last two weeks. Rival Kansas ran Kansas State out of the gym in the second half on Jan. 24. The 86-62 loss was painful, and the unafraid Melvin Council Jr. tossed salt onto the open gash by trolling Tang on the court multiple times with the Wabash Cannonball dance.
Last Sunday, Iowa State followed suit and bulldozed Kansas State, 95-61. Bramlage Coliseum, once a house of horrors, was eerily quiet for good reason.
Injuries are certainly a factor here to explain Kansas State’s downturn, even though star Memphis transfer PJ Haggerty has been productive almost every single outing. Rotation forwards like Elias Rapieque, Mobi Ikegwuruka and Khamari McGriff are all sidelined. Sniper Abdi Bashir is also out for multiple weeks with a stress fracture in his foot. But Kansas State wasn’t a good basketball team when those guys were healthy, either. They were all on the floor on Dec. 1 when K-State lost to Bowling Green at home. Tang had everyone available and still got trucked at home by Seton Hall and hammered by Indiana on the road.
The injuries have accentuated the spiral, but the roster-building decisions put Kansas State in a bind in the first place. Tang tied up a ton of his cap space into Bashir and Kostic, who have proven to be eerily similar players. Both can really shoot. Both can’t guard. It’s a problem when two of the highest-paid guys on the roster can’t play at the same time.
Tang has lamented the fact that both Tyreek Smith and Max Jones were unable to get a waiver to play this season. Those two would’ve helped immensely, but those were also risky propositions in the first place. Where is a judge in Manhattan, Kansas, when you need a Temporary Restraining Order?
Kansas State cares deeply about basketball. It wants to be good, but apathy is starting to set in. It’s hard to blame ’em when it’s 44-15 Iowa State at the under-four media timeout in the first half.
Also considered: Shaka Smart, Marquette
