Indiana Basketball Coaching Search Updates

While Indiana basketball hopes to finish its season with an NCAA Tournament to send out head coach Mike Woodson on a high note, the search for his replacement moves on. 

Athletic Director Scott Dolson has continued to do a good job keeping a tight lid on who Indiana is looking at, but there have been developments in the national coaching carousel that will impact the Indiana job. 

Yesterday, news broke that Miami would be hiring Jai Lucas, currently an assistant at Duke, for its head coaching vacancy. 

There wasn't necessarily a ton of overlap between the candidates on the lists for the two schools, but Miami may have been the highest-profile job on the market after Indiana. 

Fellow ACC opponents Florida State and Virginia will also be hiring coaches. The Hurricanes, however, have made waves for their big investments in winning basketball, like Nijel Pack's NIL deal to lure him away from Kansas State. 

Elsewhere in the Big Ten, current Iowa head coach, Fran McCaffery announced that he has no plans to step down from Iowa following this season. 

While the decision ultimately won't be totally up to McCaffery, the news could temporarily pause speculation that Iowa is the most likely landing spot for Ben McCollum. 

The Hawkeyes are 0-13 this year, McCaffery's 15th at the helm in Iowa City.

McCollum is in his first season as a Division I head coach at Drake, but has the Bulldogs at 25-3 on the season and above Iowa in the NCAA's NET Rankings. 

McCollum's relative inexperience may disqualify him from truly being in the running for the Indiana job, but the coach is sure to get a look from other high major programs looking to hire somebody this cycle. 

Should the Iowa job open up, the Hawkeyes would be the betting favorites to land the Iowa City native, McCollum. 

Iowa has also been mentioned as a potential landing spot for Creighton head coach Greg McDermott, another name that's been linked with the Indiana job of late. 

McDermott has been at Creighton since 2010, taking the Blue Jays to the NCAA Tournament nine times. He's reached the Elite Eight once and has a pair of Sweet 16 appearances since 2020-2021.

Over that span, he's also had Creighton near the top of the Big East standings. Since tying for first in 2019-20 season that had its postseason canceled by COVID-19, the Bluejays have never finished below fourth in the conference.