"Trying to assess the men's college basketball Coach of the Year race is more difficult than ever. In the pre-transfer portal era, we would compare preseason rankings to current ones, figure out which teams overachieved most and then identify our candidates. But with so many rosters changing dramatically from year to year, preseason rankings are much less predictive than in past decades."
"And how do we factor in the talent, or lack thereof, on a team's roster? In the NIL and portal era, the line between head coach and general manager is blurry and different for every team. Is it a boost for a coach to overachieve with middling talent? Or should he be dinged for assembling an average roster in the first place?"
Evaluating the men's college basketball Coach of the Year is complicated by transfer-portal roster turnover and NIL influences that reduce the reliability of preseason rankings. The head coach role increasingly overlaps with roster construction, making it hard to separate coaching impact from personnel assembly. Voters must decide whether to reward overachievement with limited talent or penalize coaches for average roster building. A consensus set of top candidates and honorable mentions has been identified heading into the season's final stretch. Examples include Tommy Lloyd guiding Arizona to a 22-0 start after major departures and Fred Hoiberg engineering Nebraska's dramatic turnaround.
Read at ESPN.com
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