Villanova on Saturday did what was expected when it fired men’s basketball coach Kyle Neptune after three seasons.
The Wildcats will miss the NCAA Tournament for the third consecutive season, and new athletic director Eric Roedl and school president Rev. Peter Donohue decided to move in a new direction.
The immediate question is: Who’s next?
The Villanova job is still a desirable one, and the school’s administration will likely cast a wide net, but the search will have a needed sense of urgency. There are other coaching vacancies, for starters. But the transfer portal also opens soon, and whoever gets the job will need to replace five starters and build a roster that helps move things in the right direction.
» READ MORE: Mike Sielski: Kyle Neptune was overwhelmed as Villanova’s head coach. The Wildcats need a dynamic leader.
Here’s a list of potential candidates, 21 in total, starting with a few reach-for-the-stars options and following with some more realistic possibilities.
Make them say no … and they probably will
Tony Bennett
If Jay Wright’s 2022 retirement came out of nowhere, how about Bennett’s? Bennett, a two-time national coach of the year who won a championship in 2019, abruptly retired weeks before this season started, citing the state of the game. Bennett is just 55 years old, and maybe a year off from the game benefited him. It’s a call you make, even if it’s a three-second conversation.
Billy Donovan
Great college coach, decent NBA coach. The Chicago Bulls are on their way to a third consecutive losing season, and maybe Donovan, a two-time national champion, is ready to come back to the college ranks to try his hand at mastering the game in its new state. Or maybe, at 59, it’s not worth all the hassle. Just ask Bennett and Wright.
That’s probably a reach
TJ Otzelberger
Two Sweet 16 appearances in his first three seasons at Iowa State put Otzelberger, 47, on the map, and the Cyclones are again one of the top teams in the country. Can Villanova attract one of the top coaches in the Big 12? It should at least try.
Will Wade
Hurry, Wade could be off to N.C. State in no time. Yes, his previous transgressions of impermissible payments to players would give Villanova’s values some pause. But it’s a new world, and Wade, 42 and now the coach at McNeese State after stints at VCU and LSU, wins games.
Chris Beard
Beard, 52, is in his second season at Ole Miss after being fired at Texas following a domestic incident that resulted in dropped charges. Prior to his firing, Beard took Texas to the NCAA Tournament in his first season in Austin, which came after a five-year run at Texas Tech that included three tournament appearances and a 2019 trip to the national championship game.
Mick Cronin
He’s certainly complained about the travel schedule in the Big Ten enough this season to conclude that coaching UCLA isn’t all sunshine and rainbows. Cronin, 53, will have the Bruins in the NCAA Tournament for the fourth time in the last five years. The previous three trips resulted in a Final Four and two Sweet 16s. Cronin spent 13 years coaching at Cincinnati, his hometown school and alma mater, where he led the Bearcats to nine consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.
Get real
Ryan Odom
By the time Villanova’s job was officially open, Odom, 50, was already being rumored to be the next head coach at Virginia. Odom made his name when he led Maryland-Baltimore County to the first 16-over-1 NCAA Tournament upset. He went 44-25 in two seasons at Utah State and, in year two at VCU, has the Rams ready to either win the Atlantic 10 or get an auto bid to the dance anyway.
Richard Pitino
How fun would the two yearly Villanova-St. John’s games be with father vs. son? This isn’t just for vanity. The younger Pitino can coach. His New Mexico team is on its way to a second consecutive NCAA Tournament appearance. Pitino, 42, has 13 years of head coaching experience.
Chris Collins
Collins, who turns 51 next month, has led Northwestern to the NCAA Tournament just three times in 12 seasons and has a winning percentage of just .507. But it’s harder than ever to win in the Big Ten, and Northwestern was a bit slow to adapt to the NIL world. It’s undoubtedly easier to win in the Big East, especially if Villanova has the financial resources it claims to have.
Mark Byington
Byington, 48, just got to Vanderbilt after a successful four-year run at James Madison. Would he leave so quickly after one 20-win season? The SEC has rapidly become the best and deepest conference in college hoops. Byington has a dozen years of head coaching experience.
Ben McCollum
All McCollum, 43, does is win. This is his first season at the Division I level, and he just led Drake to 30 wins with a bunch of Division II transfers from his time at Northwest Missouri State, where he amassed a winning percentage of .813 and four national titles in 15 seasons. McCollum, however, has reportedly emerged as the top candidate at Indiana.
Anthony Grant
Grant was the national coach of the year in 2020, but his best season as a head coach didn’t get a postseason run thanks to the pandemic. Grant, who turns 59 next month, has been a head coach for 17 seasons, the last eight at Dayton, and the Flyers have made one trip to the dance (2020 would have marked two).
Mitch Henderson
Henderson, 49, has been the coach at Princeton for 13 seasons and has led the Tigers to two NCAA Tournament appearances. Princeton has finished in the top three in the eight-team league in all but one of Henderson’s seasons. The Ivy, though, is different from the power conferences and the Big East when it comes to NIL.
Niko Medved
Colorado State was 11-21 and 4-14 in the Mountain West the season before it hired Medved in 2018. The Rams won 20 games two seasons later, and have 20-plus victories in five of Medved’s seven seasons, including multiple appearances in The Associated Press Top 25.
The net could be wide
Malik Allen … or Chris Quinn
Either Miami Heat assistant makes an intriguing candidate, though Villanova just fired a coach who had very little head coaching experience. Allen’s son, Dante, is signed as Villanova’s lone 2025 recruit. The 46-year-old played at Villanova. It would be a familial hire, which Villanova likes, but also kind of outside-the-box. So, too, would hiring Quinn, 41, who worked for a year under Collins at Northwestern before joining up with Erik Spoelstra.
Alan Huss
Huss, 46, was on Greg McDermott’s staff at Creighton, his alma mater, from 2017 to 2023 before leaving to become the head coach at High Point. Huss led High Point to back-to-back Big South regular-season titles in his first two seasons and has the Panthers in the NCAA Tournament for the first time in school history.
Drew Valentine
Valentine is just 33 but has three 20-win seasons in his first four years leading Loyola-Chicago. The Ramblers made the NCAA Tournament in Valentine’s first season leading the program, but haven’t been back after jumping to the Atlantic 10. Valentine was a graduate assistant under Tom Izzo for a few seasons and later worked under Porter Moser at Loyola before Moser left for Oklahoma and Valentine was handed the reins.
Bryce Drew
Drew, 50, has a .752 winning percentage in five seasons at Grand Canyon and last season led the Antelopes to the NCAA Tournament for the third time in five years, where they won a first-round game. Drew failed at Vanderbilt after a successful run at Valparaiso, his alma mater. Is he ready for another shot at a high-level job?
James Jones
It took a while for Jones’ teams at Yale to find consistency — the Bulldogs won the Ivy in 2002, his third season, but hovered around .500 for the following decade — but Yale has been one of the best teams in the league for the last 10 years. Jones, 61, led the Bulldogs to the NCAA Tournament three times over the last five seasons (excluding the year the Ivy didn’t play due to the pandemic) and could add another trip this weekend.
Matt Langel
The jump from the Patriot League to the Big East wouldn’t be an easy one, but Langel, 47, has built a consistent winner at Colgate before a down year this past season. Another reason his name appears on this list: He was at Temple when Roedl was.
