- http://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...viding-fresh-starts-major-conference-programs
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John GasawayESPN
One thing to keep in mind is that it's difficult to make the NCAA tournament in your first season at a new job with a major-conference program. Last season just two coaches pulled off that trick: Brad Underwood at Oklahoma State and Bryce Drew at Vanderbilt.
A lot can happen between now and the 2018 NCAA men's tournament, naturally, but the recent past does suggest that just two or three of this season's major-conference rookie coaches will go dancing. Here are all nine new head coaches, listed in the sequence in which I expect their teams to finish 2017-18 in a hypothetical ranking of all of Division I:
Thomas Bryant, OG Anunoby and James Blackmon Jr. all elected to leave early, while Robert Johnson appears to be drawing out this suspense as long as possible. Last week he was reported to be returning, but then the senior-to-be tweeted that, no, he's still making up his mind.
If Johnson does indeed play his senior season in Bloomington, Miller will have a fair amount of experience on hand. Former starter Collin Hartman will be back after missing all of last season due to injury, and also returning will be Josh Newkirk, Juwan Morgan, De'Ron Davis and Devonte Green. Miller additionally held on to the three-player freshman class that former coach Tom Crean signed, including top-100 wing Justin Smith.
The Hoosiers received their fair share of criticism in recent years for allegedly lackadaisical defense, and while no one expects that to change overnight, don't be shocked if the defensively renowned new coach makes great statistical strides in that department right away by simply lowering IU's foul rate.
Boynton was an assistant at South Carolina (his alma mater), Stephen F. Austin and Oklahoma State before being named to the top job in Stillwater. His first act as head coach was to fly to Miami to confirm the commitment of top-100 combo guard Zack Dawson to the program.
Dawson, Brandon Averette, Cal State Northridge graduate transfer Kendall Smith or another point guard to be named later will have an opportunity to shine right away, because Jawun Evans left after his sophomore season to enter the NBA draft. The good news for Boynton is that Jeffrey Carroll returns after a junior season in which he posted numbers surprisingly similar to what Josh Jackson was doing at Kansas. Carroll will be hard pressed to repeat that performance without teammates like Evans and Phil Forte (who was a senior last season), but there's no questioning his ability.
Carroll and Mitchell Solomon will be the returning starters on a team that also will feature Dawson, Averette, Smith, St. John's transfer Yankuba Sima, Cameron McGriff, Davon Dillard, Tavarius Shine and Lindy Waters III. Evans and Forte will be missed, but Boynton could have enough talent on hand to make a run at the NCAA tournament in his first season.
Give Martin credit, it's hard to imagine a new coach making more of a splash than signing the No. 1 player in the country right off the bat. Michael Porter Jr. will play what is likely to be his only college season for Missouri, and expectations are, to say the least, high. Martin has compared Porter to both Kevin Durant and Kevin Garnett. (No pressure, young man.)
Porter won't be the only new arrival in Columbia this season. Jeremiah Tilmon and Blake Harris are both top-100 freshmen, and Canisius graduate transfer Kassius Robertson is a career 40 percent 3-point shooter who averaged 16 points per contest for the Golden Griffins last season. Plus Martin just got a commitment from Jontay Porter, a top-30 junior (and Michael's younger brother) who may yet reclassify and play in 2017-18. Now consider that Missouri's already a team that returns no fewer than four starters: Kevin Puryear, Terrence Phillips, Jordan Geist and Jordan Barnett.
The Tigers were just 2-16 in the SEC last season, and the per-possession turnaround required for an NCAA tournament bid would be immense. That being said, the year-to-year programmatic 180 is already in full swing.