College Basketball Betting: 4 Coaches On The Hot Seat

The 2020-2021 college basketball season is almost in the month of February. That means the regular season has roughly one and a half months left before March Madness. If one is to survey the landscape in college basketball and identify the foremost hot seats in the coaching industry, this would be the four-person list on the midst of most hoops observers:

Archie Miller, Indiana

The Indiana Hoosiers need to make the NCAA Tournament in order for Miller to avoid getting fired. Indiana can’t keep missing the NCAAs and have its head coach continue on the job. It is simply unacceptable to miss out on March Madness for a school with so much basketball tradition. Indiana did score a huge win at Iowa this past Thursday, but the Hoosiers then lost at home to Rutgers on Sunday, part of a long-term pattern under Miller in which Indiana lets down its guard after beating nationally ranked opponents. The Hoosiers play to the level of their competition, and far too often, that has meant losing to teams the Hoosiers ought to be able to beat. Indiana occasionally springs a huge upset against a top team, but Indiana shouldn’t be in a position where it ever has to spring a big upset. The Hoosiers should simply be a lot better… and under Miller, they have largely failed to do that.

Larry Krystkowiak, Utah

The Utah Utes pay Krystkowiak one of the higher salaries among Pac-12 basketball coaches, and in 2015, when Utah made the Sweet 16, Krystkowiak was earning that salary. However, Utah has consistently missed the NCAA Tournament since its most recent appearance in 2016. The Utes have a good basketball history, having reached the national championship game in 1998 and having made a number of Sweet 16 appearances over the years. People take basketball seriously in Utah, a state whose one major professional team is the NBA’s Utah Jazz. Krystkowiak’s 2021 Utes have recently lost to California and Washington, two of the worst teams in the Pac-12. This season is already a bust, which makes it hard to see why the Utes should want to continue to throw big money at an underperforming coach who has had several years to turn around the program but is plainly falling short.

Jim Christian, Boston College

The Jim Christian years at Boston College have brought no success whatsoever. The Eagles have drifted along in mediocrity and have made no significant positive imprint on the Atlantic Coast Conference. It is well past time for the school to find a new coach and make a new start of things. This program needs a reset button, arguably more than any other in the country. It would be one thing if this program had stagnated over the course of three or four seasons, but Christian has been on the job since 2014, and he has never come especially close to making the NCAA Tournament. His time, quite simply, is up.

Dave Leitao, DePaul

The DePaul Blue Demons hired Dave Leitao as coach in 2002… and then Leitao went to Virginia. DePaul weirdly hired Leitao again in 2015, and in the first five seasons of this second tenure at DePaul, Leitao hasn’t come close to the NCAA Tournament. This was a bad hire in 2015, and now it is time to pull the plug. DePaul needs a fresh voice.