College basketball coaching hot seat: Five coaches under pressure entering a pivotal 2026-27 season

CBS Sports' annual list of the Top 25 And 1 college basketball coaches published Monday. It's a list shaped by a vote of writers and analysts, one filled with Naismith Memorial Hall of Famers and future Naismith Memorial Hall of Famers.

It's a nice list to be on, obviously.

This list, not so much.

Because this is our annual list of five coaches on the hot seat -- a list that, to be clear, should not be interpreted as a prediction of five coaches who will lose their jobs during or after the 2026-27 season. That's not what this is. Rather, this is simply a list of five coaches who likely need good seasons relative to their program's expectations to ensure they still have their jobs in April. It's a list of five men living with real job-pressure. Sure, they're all multimillionaires who will receive lucrative buyouts if they're removed -- and that's certainly better than the alternative. But getting publicly scrutinized and criticized on the way to what amounts to a pink slip is never fun, no matter a person's net worth.

Ask any rich/fired coach.

They might ultimately adjust to not working and actually enjoy the new lifestyle -- and that buyout money is always nice. But the journey from here to there, from a hot seat list in October to a termination in March, is often a brutal ride that takes an awful toll on coaches and their families.

The good news here is that every man on this list has a reasonable chance to coach his way off of it -- at least temporarily. One of them likely will. Maybe more. For now, let's just wish them all good luck.

Penny Hardaway | Memphis

Record at school: 175-87 entering ninth season
Last NCAA Tournament appearance at school: 2025

No program has fallen further over the past 20 years than Memphis -- and I don't even think it's mostly Hardaway's fault. The changing landscape of the sport, combined with every other program that mattered leaving the American Conference while Memphis remains in a league that ranked 10th nationally last season at KenPom, has played a bigger role. Either way, no traditional-aged college student can remember the Tigers on a Sweet 16 run, considering the last one came three coaches ago and way back in 2009. 

The byproduct of all of this is season-ticket sales dropping below 2,000 in an NBA arena, and a reality where sports fans in Memphis have gone from knowing every player on the roster to basically none. The Tigers finished 13-19 last season in a year that doubled as the worst for the program since 1970.

It's gotten bad.

And even if it's not all Hardaway's fault, it is all happening on his watch, and he will not be back for Year 10 unless his team performs like what it is -- specifically the best-funded team in its conference, and by a significant margin. Hardaway only has one conference championship in eight years. If that's still true after nine, barring extenuating circumstances, it'll be difficult for the program's greatest alum to overcome.

Porter Moser | Oklahoma

Record at school: 95-75 entering sixth season
Last NCAA Tournament appearance at school: 2025

Moser is a good coach with a Final Four on his Wikipedia page thanks to his time at Loyola Chicago and that magical run in 2018. But the fact that he only has one year left on his contract at Oklahoma after the 2026-27 season, and the fact that he's now working for a new athletic director, makes Moser a reasonable candidate for any list like this. 

It's also worth noting that Moser has only made the NCAA Tournament once in five years at OU, and he's finished tied for 13th and tied for 11th in the SEC since the Sooners joined that league in advance of the 2024-25 season. Any similar finish in the conference that results in Oklahoma missing an expanded 76-team NCAA Tournament could convince first-year AD Roger Denny to make a move.

Lamont Paris | South Carolina

Record at school: 62-68 entering fifth season
Last NCAA Tournament appearance at school: 2024

South Carolina is one of the most challenging jobs in the SEC, if not the most challenging. But Paris is 6-30 in conference games over the past two seasons with first-round exits in the league tournament each year.

That's not good enough.

South Carolina reportedly invested somewhere between $15 million and $17.5 million in this season's roster -- and yet KenPom still projects the Gamecocks to finish last in the SEC with a 4-14 record. Anything close to that, and it's hard to imagine Paris getting a sixth season. South Carolina has finished 12th or worse in the conference in three of his first four years and lost his only NCAA Tournament game by double digits to an Oregon team that was seeded worse and finished 55th at KenPom.

Mark Pope | Kentucky 

Record at school: 46-26 entering third season
Last NCAA Tournament appearance at school: 2026

Give Pope any normal Power-4 job, and he's fine. No issues. He might even get a contract extension. But Pope doesn't have any normal Power-4 job. What he has is arguably the most intense job in college basketball, if not all of basketball at any level in any country. So, sure, a trip to the Sweet 16 in Year 1 followed by a trip to the Round of 32 in Year 2 would be celebrated nearly everywhere other than Kentucky -- but at Kentucky it turns you into the face of this list and in need of better in Year 3 to ensure a Year 4.

The other problem for Pope is that he's following Calipari.

The Hall of Famer set a high bar.

Calipari went to the Elite Eight in Year 1 at UK, to the Final Four in Year 2, and never went consecutive years without at least making the Elite Eight for the first decade he had the job. Pope's first UK team finished tied for sixth in the SEC. His second finished tied for seventh. Calipari only finished outside of the top four of the SEC once in 15 years at Kentucky -- and that didn't come until Year 12. Different eras and all that; I get it. But UK fans still remember it and want seasons like those. Bottom line, as Matt Norlander and I discussed on a recent episode of the Eye On College Basketball Podcast, if Pope doesn't deliver something this season closer to the type of season Calipari regularly delivered, that passionate fanbase that spans the state and then some won't be shy about telling first-year athletic director J Batt what they want him to do.

Mike Young | Virginia Tech 

Record at school: 124-98 entering eighth season
Last NCAA Tournament appearance at school: 2022

Virginia Tech made the NCAA Tournament three straight years before Young took over, following Buzz Williams' five-year run that culminated in a trip to the 2019 Sweet 16. Since then, the Hokies have only made two NCAA Tournaments in seven years under Young. They're 0-2 in the Big Dance. And those losses were in 2021 and 2022, meaning Virginia Tech has missed four straight NCAA Tournaments, in part because the Hokies have finished no better than tied for eighth in the ACC in any of the previous four seasons.

Did Young get an extension in July?

Yes -- but it was only an extension through the end of the 2027-28 season. That's not an administration showing confidence in a coach as much as it's just an act of kindness. I personally have Virginia Tech finishing eighth in the ACC this season, which might be enough for the Hokies to make the NCAA Tournament, which might get Young another extension. But anything short of that could easily lead to the Hokies missing a fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament, and most believe that missing a fifth consecutive NCAA Tournament would lead to somebody other than Young coaching Virginia Tech next season.

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