{"id":99197,"date":"2025-07-28T11:10:09","date_gmt":"2025-07-28T11:10:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/99197\/"},"modified":"2025-07-28T11:10:09","modified_gmt":"2025-07-28T11:10:09","slug":"good-morning-illini-nation-the-big-tens-best-10-coaches-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/99197\/","title":{"rendered":"Good Morning, Illini Nation: The Big Ten’s best 10 coaches | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Welcome to \u201cGood Morning, Illini Nation,\u201d your daily dose of college basketball news from Illini beat writer and AP Top 25 voter Scott Richey. He\u2019ll offer up insights every morning on Brad Underwood\u2019s team and college basketball at large:<\/p>\n

The collection of Big Ten head coaches is a mix of firmly entrenched lifers, some up-and-comers and, in a unique twist this offseason the last three leaders at Drake. Beat writer Scott Richey shines a spotlight on the 10 best:<\/p>\n

1. Matt Painter, Purdue<\/p>\n

Painter has turned Purdue into arguably the Big Ten\u2019s most consistent program in the last decade-plus with a top four finish in the league in 10 of the last 11 seasons. That includes two outright regular season titles and a share of two more. Not to mention a runner-up finish in the NCAA tournament in 2023-24. All without landing all that many high-profile recruits. Turning underrated prospects into Big Ten stars has become Painter\u2019s specialty.<\/p>\n

2. Tom Izzo, Michigan State<\/p>\n

The dean of Big Ten coaches is entering his 31st season with the Spartans in 2025-26 and coming off his first conference championship since 2019-20. Last year\u2019s regular season title was the 11th of Izzo\u2019s career but came after a stretch Michigan State finished outside the top five in the league four out of five years \u2014 a stretch the Spartans hadn\u2019t experienced in nearly two decades with the longtime coach at the helm.<\/p>\n

3. Brad Underwood, Illinois<\/p>\n

Underwood is at the opposite end of the roster building spectrum from Izzo. If there\u2019s a transfer \u2014 particularly an experienced one that might be 22, 23 or 24 years old \u2014\u00a0the Illinois coach is willing to throw open the doors at Ubben Basketball Complex and State Farm Center. Underwood\u2019s ability to adapt to the changing landscape of college basketball and cater his system to regular new-look rosters has led to six straight seasons with at least 20 wins.<\/p>\n

4. Dana Altman, Oregon<\/p>\n

Oregon was a middle-of-the-pack Big Ten team last year in its first season in the conference, which tracks with the Ducks jumping from a Pac-12 that didn\u2019t have the same depth of talent. Even trying for seventh in the Big Ten, however, came with 25 wins and an NCAA tournament experience. Par for the Oregon course. If Altman is anything, it\u2019s consistent. The Ducks have never won fewer than 20 games in his 14 seasons as coach.<\/p>\n

5. Greg Gard, Wisconsin<\/p>\n

Gard can thank Bo Ryan for gifting him a Sweet 16 caliber team in 2015-16 when he moved over one seat on the bench to take over the program midseason. The Badgers haven\u2019t reached that level since making back-to-back Sweet 16s in Gard\u2019s first two seasons, but they\u2019ve won a share of a pair of regular season Big Ten titles and continue to defy preseason expectations and finish in the top half of the league on a regular basis. Must be coaching.<\/p>\n

6. Dusty May, Michigan<\/p>\n

That May took Florida Atlantic to the Final Four to cap an extraordinary 2022-23 season in with the Owls meant he could basically write his own check when it came time to move on (and up). May stuck around in Boca Raton, Fla., for another season because all his players did before he wound up at Michigan last offseason. Despite inheriting a mess of a program that went 8-24 the year prior, May got the Wolverines to 27 wins and a Sweet 16 last season.<\/p>\n

7. Buzz Williams, Maryland<\/p>\n

Wanderlust might be the most apt way to describe Williams\u2019 coaching career considering he\u2019s never stayed anywhere long. Brilliant. Most coaches don\u2019t snag lifetime jobs. Maybe it\u2019s better to leave while the program is strong before getting forced out during an inevitable dip. Williams has a career .621 winning percentage, and his teams have won at least 20 games in 13 of his 18 seasons, including the last four at Texas A&M before he bolted for Maryland.<\/p>\n

8. Mick Cronin, UCLA<\/p>\n

Would Cronin be happier back in the Midwest now that UCLA is in the Big Ten? It sure seemed that way last season when he continually expressed his displeasure\u00a0about all the travel the Bruins had during their first season in the league. But they won 23 games \u2014 a needed bounce back from the year prior \u2014\u00a0tied for fourth in the conference and made the NCAA tournament. The type of success Cronin\u2019s teams have had both at UCLA and Cincinnati before that.<\/p>\n

9. Ben McCollum, Iowa<\/p>\n

McCollum is a winner. Now, most of the new Iowa coach\u2019s winning has come outside of the Big Ten \u2014 and outside of Division I basketball \u2014 but you can\u2019t ignore the four(!) Division II national championships he won at Northwest Missouri State. Or the fact he turned Drake into a 31-win team that won a game in the NCAA tournament in his first season at the D-I level. Another year with All-American guard Bennett Stirtz could bring more of the same to the Hawkeyes.<\/p>\n

10. Eric Musselman, USC<\/p>\n

The transfer portal was Musselman\u2019s playground before it was cool. It\u2019s how he built Nevada into a dominant power in the Mountain West Conference, which he parlayed into the Arkansas job and then bolted back home to California when the USC job came open last offseason. He\u2019s had diminishing returns since leading the Razorbacks to consecutive Elite Eight appearances. Not having to flip his entire roster every year might help stabilize the Trojans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"To subscribe, click here Sign up for our daily basketball newsletter here Welcome to \u201cGood Morning, Illini Nation,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":99198,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44],"tags":[1339,15347,1317,1337,1338,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-99197","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-illini-sports","10":"tag-ncaa","11":"tag-ncaa-basketball","12":"tag-ncaabasketball","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114930556977741226","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99197","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=99197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}