The hot seat is an uncomfortable position for coaches to occupy. What’s especially unnerving for these men is that in many cases — more than what seems to be typical — they’re set up to fail.
What does this mean? Here’s the explanation:
A classic “hot seat” situation is one in which a talented team is expected to do more than the previous version. The coach has the goods; he’s expected to do a lot with them in a season which follows a period of drift and underachievement.
An altered “hot seat” situation is one in which the same make-or-break season arrived, but injuries or other plot twists have reduced expectations. The coach faces the brutal double-whammy of needing to do something to appease the fan base, yet lacking the resources he expected to have at the start.
Most of the next five examples fall into that category, an altered hot seat. Only in Bloomington, Indiana, does a “classic” hot seat situation exist. (Hey, we gave that one away, but is it news? No.)
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5 – TOM CREAN, INDIANA
The “classic” hot seat occupant is nevertheless fifth on this list for a few reasons. First, it’s going to cost plenty to buy him out before June 30, 2016, should Indiana wish to do so. $7.5 million is not pocket change. Second, for all the discontent which swirled around Indiana basketball at the beginning of the 2014-2015 season — when it was felt by many that the team would not even make the NCAA tournament — Crean outperformed expectations. Getting the team to the Big Dance represented a somewhat resourceful feat with the material he had on hand. For that reason, Crean’s position is not as precarious as the others on this list.
Yes, if Crean fails to make the NCAAs this season, he’ll be gone. That would be a spectacular miss (barring injury, of course). Crean might also experience what Tubby Smith did at Minnesota. Getting into the Dance, even winning a game in it, might not be enough if the Hoosiers are one of the last few teams in the field and finish with a losing record in Big Ten competition.
However, making the NCAA tournament is such a clear-cut make-or-miss proposition that under most imaginable scenarios, merely cracking the round of 64 — even with a loss — will make it hard for Crean to be ousted.
Maybe the school will think it can lure Gregg Marshall, of course, but that’s the kind of scenario which has to be seen before it can be believed.
One other note: Why wouldn’t Josh Pastner exist in this spot? Memphis committed a lot of money to him. No, the Tigers didn’t act wisely, but they’re stuck with at least two more seasons of Pastner, it would appear.
Now, we move to the four alternate hot seats, all hotter than the one Crean sits on in Bloomington:
4 – JOHN GROCE, ILLINOIS
The sense of perpetual drift in Champaign was enough to put Groce in this slot before the season began. However, the firing of Mike Thomas as Illinois’s athletic director will only make it easier for the newcomer to start fresh next March if the Illini aren’t in Bracketville. Groce was supposed to have to go Dancing in order to avoid the ax, and on its face, that seems like a reasonable expectation. Moreover, few programs unnecessarily hurt themselves to the extent Illinois did with non-conference scheduling last season. Groce and Thomas share responsibility for that inexcusable display of scheduling, and with Thomas out of the picture, Groce ought to handle more heat.
However, Tracy Abrams — injured a season ago, and a main reason the Illini fell short of the tournament — re-injured himself and will once again miss the season. This is something Groce couldn’t control, but it might seal his fate in Champaign.
The positive spin in this: If Groce clearly does coach this team to a result which at least matches the talent on board — and maybe exceeds it — he could get another season from an athletic director who doesn’t want to make a rash move. If Illinois is one of the first four teams out of the Dance on Selection Sunday, which would certainly represent an improvement from 2014-2015, Groce might get an added shot if only because of the injury bug to Abrams.
Yet, there’s no denying that this is an extremely uncomfortable coaching situation for Groce. At 44, he’d have time to go back to the mid-major level and then make one more bid for a bigger job down the line, but it could be that if he falls short at Illinois, a bigger job won’t materialize in 2022 or 2023. The profession is much too fragile to count on certain eventualities.
3 – TRAVIS FORD, OKLAHOMA STATE
Getting to the NCAA tournament three straight years would be a success at many schools, but not at Oklahoma State, the school of Iba and Sutton and Big Country and Joey Graham and Marcus Smart. Too much talent has been put to too little effect in Stillwater, and now, with Le’Bryan Nash no longer available and the cupboard relatively thin, Ford faces an enormously challenging season. If he manages to finish in the top six of the Big 12, it would rate as an achievement, maybe enough to save his job if it leads to an NCAA ticket. Can Ford get there? With the depleted roster he has, probably not.
2 – BRIAN GREGORY, GEORGIA TECH
The fact that Georgia Tech is still paying Paul Hewitt certainly influenced the decision to retain Gregory for another season. That, coupled with the deterioration of the program, might lead the Yellow Jackets to eat one more season if Gregory can demonstrate at least some improvement relative to his first four campaigns in Atlanta.
There are plenty of reasons why this situation is not as clear-cut as it might appear to be. Precisely because of that claim, let’s also acknowledge that Gregory doesn’t have to meet as high a standard to save his job, when compared to the other coaches on this list. If he can get the Jackets to 9-9 in the ACC, or at least 8-10, maybe he could be given the chance to turn the corner in 2016-2017.
However, given the transfer of Robert Carter to Maryland and all the other factors working against him, Gregory — who has lost at least 12 ACC games (13 if you count conference tournaments) in all four seasons on the job — is not likely to meet that target.
1 – BRUCE WEBER, KANSAS STATE
The Ballad of Bruce Weber is a very familiar one, first sung in Champaign, Illinois:
Inherit someone else’s players. Do well in the first two seasons on the job, extremely well in at least one of them. Fade away beginning in season three.
This pattern — replicated in Manhattan, Kansas — is bad enough. The fact that a bunch of suspensions, defections, and other roster dislocations have marked a miserable offseason will make it that much harder for Weber to justify all the decisions he’s made. Like Ford, Weber has to find a way to somehow get his team into the top six of the Big 12, with a resume which at least has his team squarely on the bubble come Selection Sunday. If Weber can’t at least do that much, Brad Underwood would become the natural choice to succeed him inside The Octagon of Doom.