As Indiana basketball searches for coach, Drake’s Ben McCollum has some Curt Cignetti vibes

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Don’t overthink this, Indiana.

Hoosiers athletic director Scott Dolson’s past hiring method for Indiana football works as a roadmap for Indiana’s basketball job that needs filled after this season.

Hire a winner. Never mind whether he’s a household name that’ll light up talk radio or whether he played for Bob Knight or whether he’s a disgruntled coach of the blue blood built by John Wooden.

The Hoosiers don’t need to check any of those boxes, because they just need a winner. Someone like the hoops version of football coach Curt Cignetti might work quite nicely.

When Dolson hired Cignetti from James Madison 15 months ago, the new coach got so miffed by repeated questions about his background – he’d never been so much as a coordinator at a Power Four school – that he shut down that line of inquiry with a quote that became legendary at Indiana:

“I win. Google me.”

He won in Division II. He won in the Championship Subdivision. He won at James Madison. He won a record 11 games in his first season at Indiana. Nobody needs to google Cignetti anymore to know he wins, and Dolson looked like a savant for hiring a guy who’d previously been coaching in the Sun Belt.

Now, google Ben McCollum. What do you see?

Drake coach Ben McCollum gives direction to his team during a timeout of their game against Evansville at Ford Center in Evansville, Ind., Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2025.

He wins at an 81.8% clip across multiple divisions. That includes four Division II national championships in 15 seasons at Northwest Missouri State and a 27-3 record amid his first season at Drake. The Bulldogs are seeded No. 1 in this week’s Missouri Valley Conference tournament.

College basketball requires annual roster reconstruction, and that’s particularly true after a coaching change. McCollum, 43, rebuilt Drake with a starting lineup of five transfers. Four of those starters followed McCollum from Northwest Missouri State. They haven’t missed a beat. Read that again. Drake’s starting lineup…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/article/indiana-basketball-searches-coach-drakes-110233800.html

Author : USA TODAY Sports

Publish date : 2025-03-06 11:02:00

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