4 Coaches On The Hot Seat To Begin The College Basketball Season

The 2021-2022 college basketball season is just beginning. Which coaches are already on the hot seat? Look at the Pac-12 Conference for the most obvious candidates in the sport. It’s rather remarkable that three different prime hot seat coaches all reside in one conference, but it’s absolutely true.

Mike Hopkins, Washington

Though he won the Pac-12 championship in 2018, Hopkins has since plummeted in Seattle. Washington has not been even remotely competitive in the Pac-12, falling to the bottom tier of the conference and becoming a punching bag for nearly every other team in the conference. Washington began this season by losing at home to Northern Illinois. The Huskies then barely avoided another bad loss at home, coming from behind to beat Northern Arizona. Washington gives every indication that it will once again be a terrible Pac-12 team this season, one of the three worst in the conference and very possibly dead last. If that is in fact what happens over the course of the season, Hopkins probably won’t survive.

Jerod Haase, Stanford

The Stanford Cardinal trailed Tarleton State for much of their opener. They came back to win, but that was a very shaky opening act. Then Stanford lost by 16 points to Santa Clara, a neighboring school in a smaller conference, the WCC. Stanford looks like one of the three or four worst programs in the Pac-12, and if that is the reality in late February or early March, with no progress having been made, it’s hard to see how or why Haase will be retained. He has had several seasons in charge of the Cardinal and still hasn’t made a single NCAA Tournament appearance. It makes no sense that he would be retained for yet another season if he doesn’t earn a March Madness berth. The program is currently stuck; Haase needs to get it un-stuck if he wants another season on the job in Palo Alto.

Mark Fox, California

It is true that Fox inherited a messy job which needed a complete and lengthy rebuild, but that having been said, Cal basketball is already in a huge hole this season. The Bears lost to UC-San Diego and to UNLV. Their best player last season, forward Matt Bradley, transferred to San Diego State. Cal seems likely to fight with Washington to escape that 12^th-place spot at the very bottom of the Pac-12. Cal administrators could look at this situation and insist on a different person and a fresher face to lead the Golden Bears out of their current miserable state. Fox’s seat is not has hot as Hopkins’ or Haase’s seats at Washington and Stanford, but it’s still genuinely hot. If Cal loses 70 percent of its games this year, the ugliness of such a result might be too painful to ignore.

Mike White, Florida

Gator fans who got used to regular Elite Eight trips under program icon Billy Donovan have been grumbling for years about Mike White. Florida lost to a No. 15 seed in the 2021 NCAA Tournament, increasing frustrations with the Gators’ head coach. If Florida is a bubble team this year, and not a strong NCAA Tournament team with a good chance to make the Sweet 16, this situation could become untenable for White.