Welcome back to another year of CBS Sports’ Candid Coaches feature. College basketball insiders Gary Parrish and Matt Norlander surveyed nearly 100 men’s Division I coaches in the thick of the offseason; as always, interviewees were given the promise of anonymity in a swap for honest and enlightening answers on a medley of topics. Norlander and Parrish spanned the sport to get a wide range of feedback on nine survey questions. Below is the fourth in our 2026 series.
We started the Candid Coaches series at CBS Sports 14 years ago — back in the summer of 2012, right after Anthony Davis and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist led Kentucky to the national championship. If you’re a regular reader here, you likely know some of the questions we ask annually are staples of the survey.
Today’s is one of them.
And, credit where credit is due, the coaches surveyed over the years have been pretty good at identifying who actually were the best coaching hires from the previous cycle — especially recently. Last year, they named Iowa’s Ben McCollum as the best hire — and he immediately guided the Hawkeyes to their first Elite Eight appearance since 1997. One year before that, the top two vote-getters were Arkansas‘ John Calipari and Michigan’s Dusty May, both of whom proved to be terrific gets. One year before that, the runaway winner was St. John’s Rick Pitino, who is 42-4 against Big East teams over the past two seasons with two outright conference championships and two conference tournament championships to show for it.
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Matt Norlander
Can the surveyed coaches stay hot with this question?
As always, time will tell. But it was interesting to see that when Matt Norlander and I asked roughly 100 coaches to identify this year’s best high-major hire, there was no clear top answer — and the top two vote-getters were extremely close.
Who was the best high-major coaching hire of the 2026 cycle?
Others receiving votes: Mike Boynton (Michigan), Scott Cross (Georgia Tech), Alan Huss (Creighton), Gerry McNamara (Syracuse)
Quotes that stood out
On Randy Bennett
- “This is probably the first time in a while there isn’t a sure-fire answer on a question like this — [but] I’ll go [with] Randy Bennett. He is simply the coach that has done it at an extremely high level the longest.”
- “Proven program-builder. Has won for a long time. Stayed in the region. Really impressive pickup.”
- “His teams always play winning basketball. Old-school fundamentals. … His teams play with no ego and tremendous spirit. Also, his deliberate style/tempo makes them difficult to play against.”
On Jerrod Calhoun
- “Jerrod Calhoun is about to become a household name. And a name that in a year or two will be rumored to leave for one of the blue-blood jobs that’s available. I think he’s truly underrated and will get Cincinnati rolling fast! He’s one of those guys who had the opportunity to sharpen his iron at a lower level with limited pressure. Now he knows who he is as a coach and exactly what they need to be great. As long as Cincinnati is willing to put the dollars behind NIL, he will be the next BIG name coach to emerge!”
- “My gut says to go with Jerrod Calhoun. That guy can flat-out coach some ball and does it innovatively and creatively at a place that is STARVING for some success, so they will give him resources to do so. Strong recruiter, good coach, great resources, new energy there. Great hire.”
- “Best hire should mean best fit for what the job actually is: knowledge of the program, recruiting, portal management, building a program day-to-day. Calhoun’s done that twice, at two different levels, from the ground up. That’s proof, not projection, in my opinion.”
On Michael Malone
- “I don’t give a flying f-ck [about all the other candidates]. It ain’t even close. Mike Malone is the best hire by far. … The guy won an NBA championship.”
- “Very difficult to argue against Malone given his track record and the similarities between college and pro basketball today. You cannot question his coaching acumen, and ‘recruiting’ is much more ‘roster building’ when you have UNC’s resources. Coach Malone has always gotten the most out of his teams. The old-school ‘can he recruit?’ question for NBA guys is moot here.”
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Matt Norlander
On Bryan Hodgson
- “Perfect match of coach and fanbase. For as brash and confident as he is, it’s hard to argue with the production. He’s a really good coach with a really good staff that plays to an identity. They will be a problem in the Big East.”
- “I think he fits the Friars.”
The takeaway
It was starting to look like Randy Bennett would never even be a possible answer to this question. Year after year, as his 40s became his 50s and his 50s became his 60s, the longtime Saint Mary’s coach would regularly reject overtures from high-major schools to remain in the West Coast Conference.
He did 25 years at SMC!
But once Gonzaga announced it was leaving the West Coast Conference for the remade Pac-12, the Saint Mary’s job that Bennett seemed set to have until retirement became a lesser job, if only because the Gaels, starting this season, will no longer have another perennial top-25 program in their conference. Smartly, Arizona State recognized this as an opening, pursued Bennett and convinced him to move back to the state in which he was born and raised. So now the Sun Devils have arguably the best do-more-with-less coach in college basketball — which, by the way, is EXACTLY what Arizona State needs in the Big 12 — and the coaches we surveyed labeled Bennett as the top high-major hire of 2026.
Jerrod Calhoun was the second-leading vote-getter. Like Bennett, Calhoun also left a strong program (Utah State) from a mid-major conference (Mountain West) to return to a power-conference program (Cincinnati in the Big 12) in the state in which he was born and raised (Ohio). He and Bennett were only separated by two percent of the vote, which suggests it’s really a toss-up between those two for 2026’s best coaching hire.
North Carolina’s Michael Malone was the third-leading vote-getter. Providence’s Bryan Hodgson finished fourth. Then it was LSU‘s Will Wade coming in fifth with 3% of the vote, which is interesting in part because he received 22% of the vote to the same question last year after leaving McNeese for NC State.
For whatever reason, Wade’s name wasn’t mentioned as often this time around. But we did get the following quote from a coach who predicted big things for what will be Wade’s second stint in the SEC: “Proven winner. … None of the other guys scare me. Wade scares me.”
It’s worth noting that the first-year coach with the highest-ranked team in the Top 25 And 1 is Michigan’s Mike Boynton, who finished tied for ninth in the voting. He’s obviously only available as an answer to this question because Dusty May left Ann Arbor for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks on June 22. Sixteen days later, Boynton signed a two-year contract to officially be May’s successor as Michigan’s full-time coach.
Boynton’s Wolverines are ninth in the 2026-27 CBS Sports preseason Top 25 And 1 college basketball rankings, thanks largely to the roster secured while May was still in charge. So now among the most interesting stories that’ll unfold this season is how Boynton, the former Oklahoma State coach, does with a roster most, if not all, believed May had a realistic chance to develop into back-to-back national champs.
Can Boynton do it?
Anybody insisting they know the answer to that question, at this point, positively or negatively, is passing off a “guess” as an “opinion.” There’s a long list of coaches who have struggled at one place and then flourished at another — and vice versa. So Boynton’s below-500 record in the Big 12 in seven seasons with the Cowboys isn’t necessarily indicative of what’s to come. But it does make what’s to come among the biggest stories heading into a season.
Michigan opens with Oakland on Nov. 3. Three days later, the Wolverines will meet UConn in a matchup of the two schools that played in the championship game of the 2026 NCAA Tournament. Start 2-0 and the fanbase will be all-in on Boynton. Anything less and his name will trend on X.
It’s a massive game on the first Friday of the season.
Boston’s TD Garden will host it.
Previously in 2026 Candid Coaches …
