With Fran McCaffery exiting his post as the head coach of the Iowa men’s basketball team after 15 seasons, it’s time for athletics director Beth Goetz to begin her search for a new head coach.
Here are the four most viable candidates Goetz should consider bringing to Iowa City:
Darian DeVries, West Virginia head coach
Career record: 169-68 (.713)
The rundown: DeVries makes the most sense here for plenty of reasons. First, he is a native Iowan and grew up in Aplington, a town located roughly 90 minutes away from Iowa City. DeVries also has strong ties to the University of Iowa, as his brother Jared played football for the Hawkeyes under legendary coach Hayden Fry from 1995-1998.
The 49-year-old’s Iowa ties alone make him a hot choice for the job, but it’s hard to ignore his remarkable seven-year head coaching career. After spending 17 seasons as an assistant at Creighton, he earned his first head coaching with Drake in 2018.
DeVries turned around the struggling Bulldogs program immediately, recording 20 or more victories in each of his six years at the helm, including three NCAA tournament appearances. He left Drake after the 2023-24 season to take over at West Virginia, where he promptly led the Mountaineers to the Big Dance in his first campaign despite taking over a team that finished the previous season with only nine wins.
It’s no secret that DeVries can coach and would be a terrific fit at Iowa, but would he leave West Virginia after only one season? It may seem unlikely with the Mountaineers’ program tradition and cushy NIL situation, but a lucrative offer from the Hawkeyes may be enough to bring DeVries back to his home state. Oh, and his son, Tucker, will have one final season of eligibility after redshirting the season due to a shoulder injury.
Iowa should go all-in on this one.
Chris Jans, Mississippi State head coach
Career record: 206-83 (.712)
The rundown: Like DeVries and the third man on this list, Jans is also an Iowa native. The 55-year-old grew up in Fairbank before playing college basketball at Loras College in Dubuque. After coaching at the junior college level, he earned his first Division-I head coaching job with Bowling Green in 2014. That stint ended after only one season due to a controversial incident with a woman in a bar, but he gained another opportunity with New Mexico State two years later.
Jans led the Aggies to three NCAA tournament appearances and 122 wins in five seasons, resulting in Mississippi State hiring him ahead of the 2022-23 season. The Bulldogs aren’t known for success on the hardwood, but Jans has led them to the Big Dance in each of his three years in Starkville, including a 21-12 record and a likely NCAA tournament bid in 2024-25.
While Jans does coach in the wealthy Southeastern Conference, Mississippi State is regarded as having one of the league’s worst NIL collectives. Iowa’s is only slightly better, but the Hawkeyes have a much richer basketball tradition and fanbase than the Bulldogs.
It’s also hard to ignore Jans’ spotty incident at Bowling Green, but it seems clear that he learned from his giant mistake and has made the most of every opportunity during his coaching career.
DeVries may not be a top choice for many Iowa fans, but I have a feeling that athletic director Beth Goetz hasn’t ignored Jans’ success at Mississippi State.
Ben McCollum, Drake head coach
Career record: 425-94 (.819)
The rundown: The 43-year-old was born in Iowa City and grew up in Storm Lake, so the obvious Iowa ties are there as well. Prior to replacing DeVries at Drake, McCollum served as the head coach at Division-II Northwest Missouri State, where he led the Bearcats to a 395-91 overall mark, 12 regular-season conference titles, eight conference tournament titles, and four NCAA championships in 15 seasons.
McCollum probably could have entered the Division-I coaching ranks much sooner, but he opted to wait until the right opportunity came, and he finally decided to make the leap to Drake in 2024. The Bulldogs lost a lot of talent after losing DeVries to West Virginia, but McCollum built the Dogs back into an immediate contender in the Missouri Valley Conference in year one, collecting an 30-3 record and both the Missouri Valley regular season and tournament titles this season.
McCollum’s success at Drake is even more remarkable considering he brought along several of his Northwest Missouri State players with him to Des Moines, most notably junior point guard Bennett Stirtz. If McCollum can win 30 games with Division-II transfers, then it’s easy to see him win with more resources at a program like Iowa.
The only potential downside to hiring McCollum? His Bulldogs play at one of the slowest paces in the nation, a similar style that Todd Lickliter’s teams played with during his ill-fated era in the late 2000s. That’s a sequence of Hawkeye basketball that fans never want to return to, and it’s hard to blame them.
Though McCollum’s foray into Division-I has been a tremendous success, it’s also worth mentioning that this is still only his first season coaching at the highest level, a risk that Goetz might find too dangerous to take. Either way, McCollum deserves to be considered for the job.
Will Wade, McNeese State head coach
Career Record: 243-104 (.700)
The rundown: Wade has been a winner at every coaching stop during his tenure. After serving four seasons under Shaka Smart as an assistant at Virginia Commonwealth, he earned his first head coaching job with Chattanooga at just age 29. The Mocs posted winning campaigns in each of his two seasons before Wade left to succeed Smart at VCU in 2015.
Wade picked up right where Smart left off, guiding the Rams to back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances in 2016 and 2017. It wasn’t long before most of the country took notice, and LSU ultimately hired Wade ahead of the 2017-18 season. He turned around the struggling program, leading the Tigers to three NCAA tournaments before being fired ahead of the 2021-22 postseason.
Now, I know that a previously-fired Power Four coach might be a red flag for Iowa, but LSU fired Wade for illegal payments to players. That violated NCAA rules at the time, but in the NIL era, that is completely legal.
Wade did get another chance with McNeese, and he transformed the school into an elite mid-major. The Cowboys have won consecutive Southland Conference regular season and tournament titles and have made two appearances in the Big Dance under his leadership.
Why would the 42-year-old be an attractive candidate for the Hawkeyes? Not only is he a great coach who has proven he can win at a high level, but he also knows how to find the money necessary to attract talent. That could be tricky in Iowa City, but Wade’s young energy could provide a big energy boost to a hungry Iowa fanbase starving for success in March.