One Head Coach in Each Power 6 Conference with the most pressure in 2022-2023

Mike Anderson (St. Johns)

After a solid tenure at Arkansas, Anderson will be entering his 4th year in Queens, and the Red Storm have yet to make the NCAA Tournament under his watch. This past 2022 season was labeled as an NCAA Tournament or bust for the Johnnies, as they returned a nice core, along with some key additions after a surprisingly successful 2021 season, in which Anderson won Big East Coach of the Year. St. Johns had a ton of talent last year with a pro in Julian Champagnie, alongside key transfers in Aaron Wheeler and Montez Mathis. After those very reasonable NCAA Tournament or bust aspirations, the Johnnies finished 17-15 overall and 8-11 in the Big East resulting in a 7th place conference finish. The even more frustrating part was that St. Johns final game of the season, showed they were capable of competing with the big dogs, as they gave Villanova their biggest challenge before they got eliminated by Kansas in the Final 4. Anderson didn’t stop bringing in talent this offseason, with Illinois transfer and former 6th man of the year in the Big Ten, Andre Curbelo coming to campus. The Johnnies backcourt will feature Curbelo, alongside returnees in Posh Alexander and Dylan Addae- Wusu, who are both really solid players on the defensive end. St. Johns also added DePaul transfer David Jones, who should help fill the void of Champagnie by scoring the basketball. With all of this talent aboard for the second straight season, anything less than an NCAA Tournament bid could lead to trouble for Anderson.

Chris Beard (Texas)

Despite winning Texas’ their first NCAA Tournament game since 2014 in only his first season in Austin, the 2022 season felt like it could have gone a little better for Chris Beard. Unlike Anderson, Beard won’t be coaching with pressure of losing his job any time soon, but Texas fans are expecting big things. This was the second consecutive offseason since Beard has taken over that Texas has been one of the main winners of the Transfer Portal. At this time last season, Texas was the consensus big winner of the portal and entered last season ranked in the top 5. Texas brought in guys like Marcus Carr, Timmy Allen, Tre Mitchell, Christian Bishop, Dylan Disu and Devin Askew, who all played big roles at their previous school, but never seemed to develop the proper chemistry last season. A lot of that could have also had to do with guys from the Shaka Smart era like Courtney Ramey and Andrew Jones also in the mix and it seemed like no one ever established a role. Texas won enough games to get into the big dance, but never put together that consistent stretch of good basketball, to show they were among the country’s best. Even though those expectations are high especially for a first-year coach, Beard did wonders at Texas Tech leading a Red Raiders program, which is historically a much more difficult job than Texas, all the way to the National Championship game in only his third season in Lubbock. Now, Texas brings in Iowa State transfer Tyrese Hunter, who looked like a future NBA first round pick at times as a season ago and should be a great fit in Chris Beard’s system. This is alongside one of the better recruiting classes in the country headlined by McDonald’s All Americans Dillon Mitchell and Arterio Morris. The overall level of talent on this Texas team is significantly better than last years, but the question is can they develop enough chemistry to break through and be one of the better teams in the country throughout the season.

Mike Hopkins (Washington)

It has now been 5 years since Hopkins made a decision that was shocking to many, and left Syracuse to become the new Head Coach at Washington. This came after being Jim Boeheim’s right-hand man for 20 seasons in upstate New York, and being the obvious candidate to ultimately replace Boeheim. With Boeheim still doing his thing, Hopkins would still be waiting if he never left, but has yet to get things really going at Washington. Hopkins got off to a really solid start, winning 21 games in his first season in Seattle and just narrowly missing the NCAA Tournament. He then followed that up by leading the Huskies to an NCAA Tournament berth and a Pac 12 regular season title in his second year. The three years since have been very disappointing however, as Washington hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since. This included the 2020 season that ultimately ended shortly, but Washington had two McDonald’s All-American Freshman in Isaiah Seward and Jaden McDaniels, but the Huskies only went 5-13 during Pac 12 play and would have needed a miracle run to salvage things. The last two years since the pandemic hit haven’t gone much better, as the Huskies have gone a combined 22-36 overall during that stretch. Washington brings in some quality transfers for this season including Keion Brooks from Kentucky, Noah Williams from Washington State and Franck Kepnang from Oregon, all of which fit in nicely and should provide some length to Hopkin’s 2-3 zone defense. Despite the talent, Washington is currently projected to finish in the middle to low tier of the Pac 12 and anything less than an NCAA Tournament berth could be trouble for Hopkins future.

Kevin Keatts (NC State)

Keatts was hired in the same 2017 offseason as the aforementioned Hopkins, and similarly things didn’t start off too bad at his new gig. The Wolfpack made the NCAA Tournament in Keatts first season in Raleigh, winning 21 games to most people’s surprise. NC State even had a respectable 2019 season, narrowly missing the big dance in controversial fashion and would have likely had their names called on Selection Sunday in 2020. The last two years however, things have taken a turn for the worst, as NC State has gone a combined 25-32, in the last two seasons. Things particularly fell off the rails this past season, when NC State only won 4 ACC Conference games, which was their lowest since the 2017 season, which was Mark Gotfried’s final season before being shown the door. This was with two all ACC caliber players leading the way in Dereon Seabron and Terquavion Smith, who both went from unknown commodities to in the conversation of best players in the ACC over the course of the season. To Keatts credit, Smith shocked many people and decided to return to Raleigh, after impressing many at the NBA Draft combine, and will have a legitimate chance to win ACC Player of the Year this season. In addition, NC State will bring in Ole Miss Transfer Jarkell Joiner, alongside successful mid-major players in DJ Burns and Jack Clark. With that, the worry remains that C State had plenty of talent last year, but the team looked disengaged and lost a ton of games that they should have had. With the last two seasons spiraling out of control quickly, Keatts needs a bounce back for the fans in Raleigh to regain confidence.

Chris Collins (Northwestern)

There aren’t many jobs or circumstances in Power 6 College Basketball, where a coach doesn’t make the NCAA Tournament for five consecutive seasons but is still in charge, but that is the case at Northwestern. In 2017, Collins led the Wildcats to their first NCAA Tournament appearance and win in program history. After what looked to be solid momentum built, Northwestern has been utterly disappointed since, winning no more than 15 games in a season and not appearing in any form of postseason play. After a few rebuilding years, the last two seasons were supposed to be what put Northwestern Basketball back on the map, but that hasn’t been the case. Two of Northwestern’s better pliers have transferred out of the program in the last two years including Pete Nance and Miller Kopp, while the Guards have been decent but haven’t taken that next step to put things over the top. The frustrating thing about Northwestern, has been their end of game struggles, which have not been fixed or even improved in the last few seasons. Any Northwestern fan will tell you that the team has given away way too many games late, and the same issues would cost the Wildcats time after time after time. From careless turnovers to many bad shots, Northwestern hasn’t shown any late game awareness which has cost them severely. In addition, former top 100 recruit Casey Simmons announced he’d be leaving the program this past month, which isn’t ideal after losing guys like Nance and Kopp. Northwestern does return some experienced guards in Boo Buie and Chase Audige, but they have also struggled to show they are good enough to lead this Northwestern team to win games in the Big Ten. If things haven’t worked out for Collins in years past, there isn’t much reason to believe anything will change given the current state of the program.

Kermit Davis (Ole Miss)

In a similar way to many others on this list, Davis had some success when he first arrived at his new home, but has yet to match it in the years since. After spending 16 seasons at Middle Tennessee State, Davis came to Oxford right away and led Ole Miss to a surprise NCAA Tournament berth in 2018. Since then, the most games the Rebels have won in a season is 16 and they have yet to return to the NCAA Tournament. Davis has increased the overall level of talent in Oxford, bringing in guys like Matthew Murrell in the Freshman Class of 2020, who was a 4-star recruit and the highest ranked player out of High School, to ever come to Ole Miss. In addition, the Rebels brought in Duke transfer Jaemyn Brakefield, who is also a former top 50 recruit out of High School. Both players will be returning to Oxford for the upcoming season, but there is some doubt if Ole Miss is going to be able to compete in an absolutely loaded SEC. That was a little bit of the concern when Davis first got to Oxford, even though he had a lot of success at Middle Tennessee State, but would he be able to go head to head with John Calipari, Eric Mussleman, Bruce Pearl and some of the other best coaches in the country. Over the past few years, the SEC has gone through a total reemergence bringing in some of the best coaches in the sport and is approaching one of the premier conferences in all of the sport. After a few down years, Davis will need to prove that he can compete with those guys at the top, with at least a competitive season featuring some positive movements.