How college basketball teams have done after their coach left for NBA

Dusty May’s late-June departure for the NBA is incredibly rare. It has been done before, but it hasn’t been done since another Michigan coach, John Beilein, left for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2019. The dream of a Michigan dynasty under May is now dead, so what should Michigan fans expect next year?

Obviously there are still a ton of moving parts that will need to be settled. Michigan’s roster will be in a state of flux. However, we can look at some historical precedent to see how well teams have performed the year after their coach left for the NBA.

John Beilein, Michigan to Cleveland Cavaliers in May 2019

As Michigan fans are painfully aware, the last NCAA head coach to leave for the NBA immediately as a head coach was a legendary figure in Ann Arbor. With most of available college coaches already taken, Warde Manuel pivoted to program legend Juwan Howard, who was an NBA assistant coach at the time.

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Howard inherited a program that was firing on all cylinders. He largely kept the train moving in the first year, finishing 19-12 and headed for the NCAA Tournament before the pandemic canceled the tournament.

Billy Donovan, Florida to Oklahoma City Thunder in April 2015

Donovan experienced a bit of a down year in his last season at the helm of the Gators. Florida went 16-17 and missed the NCAA Tournament. Florida then hired Mike White, who marginally improved the team in his first season by going 21-15 but still missing the tournament. This wasn’t a crazy improvement, but it was marginally better than Donovan’s last season.

Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State to Chicago Bulls in June 2015

Hoiberg had built a perennial tournament team at Iowa State, which was relatively rare. The year he left, the Cyclones were a 3-seed in the NCAA Tournament before being upset by 14-seed UAB. To replace him, Iowa State hired Steve Prohm out of Murray State. He lost more than half of the roster from the previous season, but did an excellent job and built a 4-seed in his first season. The Cyclones…

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Publish date : 2026-06-23 18:00:00

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