{"id":290462,"date":"2025-10-09T23:25:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-09T23:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/290462\/"},"modified":"2025-10-09T23:25:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-09T23:25:10","slug":"four-coaches-new-to-the-big-ten-look-to-get-their-programs-back-on-track","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/290462\/","title":{"rendered":"Four coaches new to the Big Ten look to get their programs back on track"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maryland’s Buzz Williams is one of four coaches new to the Big Ten this season trying to replicate Dusty May\u2019s first-year success story at Michigan.<\/p>\n


\n New Maryland men’s basketball head coach Buzz Williams speaks during a college basketball press conference, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in College Park, Md. (AP Photo\/Nick Wass)(AP\/Nick Wass)<\/p>\n


\n New Maryland men’s basketball head coach Buzz Williams speaks during a college basketball press conference, Wednesday, April 2, 2025, in College Park, Md. (AP Photo\/Nick Wass)(AP\/Nick Wass)<\/p>\n

ROSEMONT, Ill. (AP) \u2014 Dusty May led Michigan to a Big Ten Tournament championship and an appearance in the Sweet 16 last season, his first as coach of the Wolverines, a stunning achievement for a program that finished last in the conference the previous season.<\/p>\n

Four coaches new to the Big Ten this season \u2014 Indiana\u2019s Darian DeVries, Iowa\u2019s Ben McCollum, Buzz Williams at Maryland and Niko Medved at Minnesota \u2014 will try to replicate May\u2019s first-year success story.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of fun to see how it\u2019s all going to fit together,\u201d Medved said at Big Ten media day on Thursday. He replaced Ben Johnson at Minnesota after a seven-season run at Colorado State that included three NCAA Tournament appearances.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel like if we are in April next year and our fan base and stakeholders are more excited about Gopher basketball than they are today then we had a good season,\u201d he said. \u201cI don\u2019t know what that means, maybe win more than I think, but that\u2019s the charge. Can we start to build some of the excitement back into our fan base?\u201d<\/p>\n

Wisconsin coach Greg Gard thinks Medved is the right person to get Minnesota back on track.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s worked his way up, and he\u2019s done really well at every place he\u2019s been,\u201d Gard said. \u201cNiko hasn\u2019t changed since the first time I met him years ago. He\u2019s still the same person, despite all the success. That\u2019s the type of person you gravitate to in this profession. I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll do a good job at Minnesota. He\u2019s a really good basketball coach and a good person, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

McCollum landed at Iowa to take over for Fran McCaffery. He took Drake to the NCAA Tournament last season and previously won four Division II national titles at Northwest Missouri State.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can have success right away,\u201d McCollum said. \u201cIt just depends on the players you coach and the staff that you hire. Hopefully we did those the right way and I\u2019m pretty sure we did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Competing in the Big Ten will be a challenge, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a tough league. There are no nights off,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to figure out if we can have an emotional game and then three days later get ourselves emotionally ready to play again. Doing that at a consistent level is what we are trying to get to as a program.\u201d<\/p>\n

DeVries took over at Indiana from Mike Woodson after coaching for one season at West Virginia and a six-year run at Drake that included three NCAA appearances.<\/p>\n

\u201cDusty had a very good first season, but for me it\u2019s more about us,\u201d DeVries said. \u201cOur focus is how do we get better every day. How does this group maximize itself and then have an internal belief in what we can accomplish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Buzz Williams arrives at Maryland after several coaching stops, the most recent of which was at Texas A&M, where he finished with three consecutive NCAA Tournament bids. The Aggies lost to May\u2019s Michigan squad in the second round of last season\u2019s tourney.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think (May) is a star. Wherever he\u2019s been he\u2019s been ultra successful,\u201d Williams said. \u201cBut I try real hard to not compare myself to anybody else or any other program. I\u2019m just trying to put together a roster.\u201d<\/p>\n

May will try to build on last season\u2019s success. As for the new coaches, they\u2019re on their own.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe coaches we\u2019ve hired in this league don\u2019t need my advice,\u201d May said. \u201cThese guys are proven winners. They\u2019ve been doing it at an extremely high level. They\u2019ve earned their way here.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP mobile app). AP college basketball: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright
\n \u00a9\u00a02025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maryland’s Buzz Williams is one of four coaches new to the Big Ten this season trying to replicate…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":290463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-290462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115346796068645109","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}