A number of well-known changes have been made to the 2025 NCAA men’s basketball coaching carousel. Richard Pitino, who led New Mexico to two NCAA Tournament berths and a Mountain West tournament title, takes over at Xavier University. Richard will now face his father, Rick Pitino (St. John’s Head Coach) twice a year. He replaces Sean Miller, who is now the head coach at Texas, bringing his extensive experience from Xavier and Arizona, where he made multiple deep tournament runs.
Darian DeVries, who led mid-major teams to the NCAA Tournament, was hired by Indiana University from Drake and this past year at West Virginia in an attempt to rebuild their program. From Division II Northwest Missouri State to Drake, where he was extremely successful but lacked Power Five experience, Ben McCollum will take over in Iowa where he looks to get them back to the NCAA Tournament. After his success at Colorado State and fresh appearance to NCAA Tournament, Minnesota is counting on Niko Medved, a native of Minnesota, to turn around their faltering program
Despite previous scandals, Will Wade is back in the Power Five and head coach at NC State with the goal of reviving the Wolfpack’s chances of winning the ACC. To keep the program competitive, Virginia has hired Ryan Odom from VCU, leading the Rams to a 52-21 record and NCAA Tournament birth in his two seasons with them. Former Duke assistant Jai Lucas has taken the Miami job to take Jim Larrañaga’s place as he retired half way through the season.
After Pitino was eliminated, VCU made a swift decision; Phil Martelli Jr., the 43-year-old Bryant coach, will be leaving Rhode Island to take a six-year contract with the Rams in Richmond, Virginia.
