Feb 10, 2024; Columbia, South Carolina, USA; South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Lamont Paris speaks with guard Meechie Johnson (5) in the first half against the Vanderbilt Commodores at Colonial Life Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jeff Blake-USA TODAY Sports
After hiring its last two men’s basketball coaches months after season’s end, Ohio State will now get a coaching search underway with six games remaining in the regular season.
Wednesday, Ohio State fired coach Chris Holtmann near the end of his seventh season. The Buckeyes are now the first major school to be in the pool for a new coach for the 2024 offseason.
Among the unknowns is what incoming athletic director Ross Bjork will value in a candidate. That makes finalizing a list challenging at this point, but it will be not only his first big move at Ohio State it will be among his first moves, period. He starts in a senior advisor to the athletic director role on March 1, reporting to the president, before taking over the job this summer.
Here are a list of potential candidates in alphabetical order.
Jeff Boals, Ohio
A former Ohio State associate head coach during the Thad Matta era, Boals was with the Buckeyes from 2009-16 before taking the head coaching job at Stony Brook. He went 55-41 in three seasons there before taking the job at his alma mater in 2019. In 2021, he led the Bobcats to the NCAA Tournament by winning the Mid-American Conference tournament and knocked off reigning national champion Virginia in the first round.
Dennis Gates, Missouri
The 44-year-old Gates spent eight years as an assistant for Leonard Hamilton at Florida State before becoming the head coach at Cleveland State for the 2019-20 season. In three years there, Gates won 50 games and was 39-19 in his final two seasons. He was named conference coach of the year in each of his first two seasons and in 2021 coached the school’s first NCAA Tournament win in 12 years.
Gates took a 12-win Missouri team in 2021-22 and went 25-10 in his first season while being named SEC coach of the year. This year, though, the Tigers are 8-16 overall and 0-11 in the league.
Pat Kelsey, College of Charleston
A Cincinnati native who played at Wyoming and Xavier, Kelsey has been an assistant at Wake Forest, associate head coach at Xavier and the head coach at both Winthrop and Charleston. He was named Big South coach of the year in 2021 and won four conference championships before moving to Charleston in 2021. He led the Cougars to a 31-4 record, including a 28-game win streak, in his second season.
He is one of four active Division I men’s basketball coaches with at least 203 wins in 10 seasons or fewer, joining a list that includes Chris Beard, Archie Miller and Bryce Drew.
Dusty May, Florida Atlantic
One of the hottest names in the profession, May led Florida Atlantic to a historic Final Four run last season and is running it back this year with essentially the same roster. The Owls went 35-4 last year and are 19-5 as of Wednesday.
He signed a 10-year extension with FAU last April. May was a student manager at Indiana.
Greg McDermott, Creighton
The Buckeyes went after McDermott before hiring Holtmann, with Smith flying in a private jet to meet with him only to return to Columbus and officially sign Holtmann within 24 hours. He is now in his 14th season with the Bluejays and was 300-150 in his first 13 years at the program.
Before taking the Creighton job, McDermott spent four years as Iowa State’s head coach and won 59 games.
Sean Miller, Xavier
Now in his second go-round with the Musketeers, Miller spent 12 years at Arizona. He has made eight trips to the Sweet 16 and four to the Elite Eight and in his first season back at Xavier helped the Musketeers go 27-10. He has a tie to Ohio State: Miller was Thad Matta’s associate head coach at Xavier from 2001-04 and took over the full-time job when Matta left for Ohio State.
Wes Miller, Cincinnati
In his third season with the Bearcats, Miller spent 10 years as the coach at UNC Greensboro. He won 217 games before turning 40, the 15th highest total all-time and seventh among coaches since 1970. In May 2020, ESPN named him the No. 1 coach under the age of 40.
Miller won 185 games at UNC Greensboro and made two NCAA Tournament appearances while in the Southern Conference. He played collegiately for Roy Williams at North Carolina, where he was team captain for the 2006-07 season.
Lamont Paris, South Carolina
A native Ohioan who has Big Ten ties, Paris is from Findlay and played four seasons at Wooster before working his way up the coaching ladder. Paris was an assistant at Akron for five years and then moved to Wisconsin, where he spent eight years as an assistant.
Paris took over at Chattanooga for the 2017-18 season and reached the 2022 NCAA Tournament before being hired at South Carolina for the 2022-23 season. The Gamecocks are 21-3 this season and 9-2 in the SEC, putting him in the running for national coach of the year honors.
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Buzz Williams, Texas A&M
Ohio State showed some interest in Williams before hiring Holtmann. He was at Virginia Tech at the time, where he made the 2019 Sweet 16 before taking the job at Texas A&M. He predates Bjork’s arrival and has posted a winning record in three of his first four seasons while making the 2023 NCAA Tournament.
Williams spent one year at New Orleans, six years at Marquette (with two Sweet 16 finishes and one Elite Eight) and five years at Virginia Tech.
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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Lamont Paris, Sean Miller and other Ohio State coaching candidates
