Ranking SoCon Basketball Head Coaches (Past)

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In the off-season, it’s always fun to come up with content and different rankings. For the past few years, I have been meaning to write this article but have never gotten around to it. Now is the time, however, and it’s time to rank the SoCon’s 10 basketball coaches.

Part of the reason it has been hard to do at some points in the past is the fact that there has been some turnover and it’s a bit unfair to rank coaches that haven’t been in the league that long, however, with Ryan Ridder (Mercer)and Tim Craft (Western Carolina) just coming into the league last season, there is always going to be one or two coaches that haven’t been in the league long. That being said, those two are the exception more than the rule, as most of the other staffs have been in the league at least two seasons.

The list is based a little on longevity in the league but also based some on success or lack thereof at previous stops in their respective careers. I have argued more than once that the SoCon has been a hotbed for developing young coaching talent to make the jump to the power conference level.

During the off-season, the SoCon had just one coaching change, with Bucky McMillan having moved on to Texas A&M to become the head coach of the Aggies. He becomes the latest of the league’s head coaches to make the jump to the power six level of college basketball. Below is a list of the coaches that have left for the power six conferences over the past decade.

Before we rank the current 1-10 coaches in the SoCon, let’s take a look back at the coaches that are now coaching at the power six level, starting with the 2013-14 season. The 2025-26 season of basketball will mark the 106th season of college basketball in the SoCon.

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— Chattanooga Basketball (@GoMocsMBB) July 14, 2025

Will Wade (Chattanooga, 2013-15)–With mentors such as former Clemson head coach Larry Shyatt and current Marquette boss Shaka Smart, the controversial head coach took over the Chattanooga basketball program following the resignation of John Shulman following the 2012-13 season. He left VCU where he was a top assistant at VCU under Smart to take over the suddenly struggling Mocs basketball program and the 2013-14 season would see Chattanooga turn things around in a major way, finishing with an 18-15 record and a 12-4 ledger in Southern Conference play–good enough to see the Mocs finish second overall in the SoCon standings that season and see the Mocs qualify for the http://CollegeInsider.com Tournament (CIT), losing to bitter rival and then Atlantic Sun member East Tennessee State, 79-66, in the opening round in Johnson City. Wade would be named Southern Conference Coach of the Year in 2013-14. In his final season at Chattanooga in 2014-15, he would lead the Mocs to 22 wins, which included a 15-3 mark in regular-season SoCon action, which was good enough for a second-place finish in the regular-season, with only Wofford finishing with a better record. After No. 10 seed Furman upset Wade’s Mocs in the quarterfinals of the SoCon Tournament, it brought an abrupt end to what had been a successful campaign. In two seasons at UTC, Wade posted a 40-25 mark in two seasons. Shortly thereafter, Wade would accept the head coaching job at VCU where spent two seasons before getting his first big power six job at LSU in 2017. Wade was recently named as the new head coach at North Carolina State in late March of 2025.

US Brick CEO and 1994 Furman Grad, Mikee Johnson, brought to us the kind of leadership and insight that fuels growth! We are grateful for the time he spent with our team last week.#BetterTogether // #FURthertheMAN pic.twitter.com/9RtIV2w72n

— Furman Basketball (@FurmanMBB) July 17, 2025

Niko Medved (Furman, 2012-17)–Took Minnesota job in the off-season; Left Furman for Drake during the Paladins’ 2017 postseason run in the CIT; He then left following one year at Drake and then spent seven seasons at the helm of the Colorado State, leading the Rams to the Sweet Sixteen this past March before taking the job at his alma mater Minnesota just 48 hours after the Rams heartbreaking loss in the NCAA Tournament to Maryland at the buzzer. Medved started his propensity for turning around Furman during his time as the Paladins’ head coach, taking over a Furman basketball program that won just six games in the season prior to him taking the reins. In Medved’s first season at Furman, the Paladins won just nine games, finishing off the season with a 9-20 record. It wouldn’t be until the tail end of the 2014-15 season that Medved would really start to turn the Paladin basketball program into being a perennial power in the Southern Conference, as he would lead Furman all the way to the SoCon title game as the No. 10 seed, as the Paladins came close to becoming the biggest upset story in league history before losing to top seeded Wofford, 67-64, in the 2015 championship game. Medved would lead Furman to 19 and 23-win seasons over the next two campaigns, which included a shared SoCon title in the 2016-17, as ETSU, UNCG and Furman all shared the regular-season SoCon crown. Medved was responsible for helping the Paladins to back-to-back CIT bids–the program’s first postseason appearance since 2010–and the win over Louisiana Monroe in the 2016 CIT was Furman’s first postseason win of any sort since 1974 only the second in program history. He finished with a record of 62-70 over four years, helping re-shape Furman basketball into a perennial SoCon title contender.

SOUTHERN CONFERENCE CHAMPIONS #ConquerandPrevail pic.twitter.com/PtFgC9K3Us

— Wofford Men's Basketball (@WoffordMBB) March 11, 2025

Mike Young (Wofford, 2002-19)–Mike Young was one of the “feel-good” stories of the Southern Conference coaching ladder over the past decade. Prior to the remarkable 2018-19 season, Young was the lowest paid coach in the Southern Conference. That’s almost unbelievable when you consider what he had done and what he was in the process of doing for the Terriers basketball program over what was a 17-year coaching career in Spartanburg, which saw Young essentially build the Terrier program into a perennial SoCon and mid-major power over a 17-year span, taking the Terrier basketball program from NCAA Division infancy to one that made five of its six NCAA Tournament appearances in a 10-year span under his watchful eye. Young was 5-0 in title games in his career. He finished his career at Wofford with 299-career wins at Wofford, finishing with an impressive 299-244 record over 18 seasons as the head coach of the Terriers. His crowning achievement as the Terriers’ head coach was leading Wofford to 30 wins, national ranking and Southern Conference regular-season and tournament titles during the 2018-19 season. The Terriers finished the season with a 30-5 overall record, which included an 18-0 record in regular-season play in what was a league that featured maybe the most strength across its top four in league history. With players like NCAA record-breaking shooter Fletcher Magee and big man Cameron Jackson, Young helped the Terriers to cruise to an opening round, 84-68, opening round win over Seton Hall. The Terriers would eventually see their magical run end in the second round of the NCAA Tournament, with a 62-55 loss to a Tyler Herro-led Kentucky team. Wofford’s opening round win over Seton Hall in the 2019 NCAA Tournament marked the program’s first NCAA Tournament win in program history. Shortly after the 2019 NCAA Tournament exit, Young accepted the head coaching position at Virginia Tech where he remains the head coach currently. It ended a 30-year tenure at Wofford as either the assistant coach (1989-2002) or the head coach (2002-19).

Summer grind 😤#OurHouseOurTime pic.twitter.com/IA4fc4mKfz

— ETSU Men's Basketball (@ETSU_MBB) July 18, 2025

Steve Forbes (ETSU, 2015-2020)–Steve Forbes would end up being the coach that brought East Tennessee State basketball back to the pinnacle of success on the Southern Conference hardwood, as well as being a coach that like Young at Wofford, would end up leading ETSU to its most historic season in program history prior to his departure following the 2019-20 season. Forbes took over an ETSU prior to the 2015-16 season, which was just after the first season for the Bucs back in the Southern Conference after spending nine years in the Atlantic Sun. ETSU’s first season back in the SoCon came on the heels of a very mediocre return to the league a year earlier under the direction of Murry Bartow, who led the Bucs to a 16-14 overall mark and an 8-10 record in league play in their first season back in the league in after the near-decade absence. Forbes, who had been serving a two-year show-cause penalty as a head coach at Northwest Florida State, leading the team from Niceville, FL, to a 62-6 record over two seasons at the helm. From there, he would join Gregg Marshall’s staff at Wichita State for the 2013-14 and 2014-15 seasons before being hired at ETSU prior to the 2015-16 season. Forbes’ impact as the head coach was almost immediate, bringing in a high-profile class in that first season, which included Baylor transfer Deuce Bello and guard Ge’Lawn Guyn from Cincinnati, as the Bucs won 24 games in Forbes’ first season as the head coach and made the SoCon Tournament title game before dropping what was a 73-67 loss to Chattanooga in the title game tilt. The Bucs would garner a postseason invite to the Vegas 16, reaching the semifinals of that tournament. In his second season in Johnson City, he would lead the Bucs to their first of two SoCon titles over a five-year stretch, as the Bucs finished 27-8 overall and 14-4 in the SoCon, sharing the regular-season title with Furman and UNCG, who also posted 14-4 league marks that season. In the 2017 SoCon title game, the Bucs downed league juggernaut UNCG, 79-74, in the championship game. After winning 49 games over the next couple of seasons, the Bucs put together what was a historic run in the 2019-20 season, following up Wofford’s 30-win campaign of the 2018-19 season with 30 wins in 2019-20, which included a pre-Christmas win over LSU in Baton Rouge (W, 74-63). The Bucs would complete the SoCon regular-season with a 16-2 mark, with the only league losses that season coming at Furman (L, 55-64) and vs. Mercer (L, 55-71). Unlike Wofford a year earlier, the Bucs reached the 30-win plateau prior to the NCAA Tournament, which was ultimately canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, as ETSU knocked off Wofford, 72-58, in the title game. Following the 30-4 campaign, the Bucs unfortunately did not get to compete in the NCAA Tournament due to the aforementioned pandemic, however, the consensus is that the Bucs would have likely won one or perhaps two games in the Big Dance. After 130 wins and two SoCon Tournament titles in five years, Forbes followed his dream of coaching power six conference basketball, accepting the head coaching offer from Wake Forest in late April of 2020 where he remains presently.

Heavy reps. Locked in. 💪#letsgoG #BROTHERHOOD pic.twitter.com/lQuOEAZwcp

— UNCG Basketball (@UNCGBasketball) July 10, 2025

Wes Miller (UNCG, 2011-2021)–Wes Miller was an example of a coach where patience paid off by the UNCG Athletic Administration. Miller, who won a 2005 national title as a player at UNC under Roy Williams, would become a head coach just six years later, as he took over on an interim basis for Mike Dement at UNCG in December of 2011 after the Spartans had gotten off to just a 2-8 start. Under the watchful of eye of the young interim head coach, the Spartans would post an 11-11 record to finish out the campaign with a 13-19 overall record and a forged a tie for first place atop the North Division in the 2011-12 standings. He was named the 2012 SoCon Coach of the Year in the process. After being hired on as an assistant prior to UNCG’s 7-24 season of 2010-11 and leading the Spartans over the latter half of the ensuing season as the interim head coach, Miller shed the interim tag the following season and officially become the head coach at UNCG for the 2012-13 campaign. Miller wouldn’t see success come as immediately as Forbes did at ETSU, or Wade did at Chattanooga. In fact, the first-place finish in 2011-12 as an interim coach would be followed by back-to-back last-place finishes in the North Division before the SoCon transitioned away from divisions prior to the 2014-15 season. UNCG’s success would interestingly coincide with ETSU, Furman, Chattanooga and Wofford in the league during that same period. Following a seventh-place finish in 2014-15, Miller started to build UNCG into a perennial SoCon title contender in 2015-16 after a 15-19 season, which saw the program tie for fifth in the league standings with a 10-8 mark, and would garner a CIT bid and reached the quarterfinals of that tournament, which accounted for UNCG’s first non-conference tournament postseason win as an NCAA Division I member. Miller would lead the Spartans to 25 wins and a tie atop the league for a regular-season title in 2016-17, as the Spartans shared the title with both Furman (14-4) and ETSU (14-4) that season, but tiebreakers would see UNCG head to Asheville as the SoCon’s top overall seed. UNCG would eventually lose in the tournament title game, 79-74, to ETSU in the 2017 title game but got revenge a year later, as the Spartans downed the Bucs, 62-47, in the championship game to return to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the 2001-02 season, when the Spartans won their first SoCon title under Fran McCaffery. UNCG would lost a heartbreaking 68-64 decision in the NCAA Tournament’s opening round, capping the campaign with a school-record 27 wins. A year later, the Spartans were even better, however, came up short of returning to the Dance and had to settle for a second NIT appearance in a two-year span, as the Spartans were downed 70-58 in the championship by Wofford, who went on to that magical 30-win season. The Spartans were the top overall seed in the NIT, and after defeating Campbell, 84-69, in the opening round, UNCG had reached a school-record 29 wins. The magical season would eventually come to an end with an 86-69 loss to No. 5 seed Lipscomb in the next round. The Spartans would post a 23-9 record and third-place finish in the 2019-20 season before breaking through and winning the SoCon regular-season and tournament titles once again in the 2020-21 campaign, which saw the Spartans finish 21-9 overall and a 13-5 mark in SoCon play, as the season was shortened in the non-conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Following a 69-63 title game win over Mercer in Asheville, the Spartans would push Florida State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament before eventually losing a 64-54 contest in the bubble in Indianapolis. Shortly after the NCAA Tournament exit and following a record of 185-135 over 10 seasons at UNCG, Miller would accept the offer to fill the University of Cincinnati’s head coaching vacancy in the spring of 2021.

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— Chattanooga Basketball (@GoMocsMBB) July 8, 2025

Lamont Paris (Chattanooga 2017-2022)–Other than maybe Furman’s Niko Medved, no coach inherited a worse situation than Paris when he arrived at Chattanooga. I’d say Paris’ situation upon being named the 20th head coach at UTC in early April of 2017 was even worse than that of Medved when he took over in Greenville some four years earlier. Paris had his roster completely turn over, which was no fault of his own when he took over, as there was a mass exodus from the Mocs program in his first season as the head coach following the departure of Matt McCall to take the UMass job. Things weren’t much better following winning just 10 games in Paris’ first season as the head coach. Prior to even coaching one game at UTC, 11 players ended up leaving the Chattanooga basketball program prior to the 2017-18 season, and to one’s real surprise, the Mocs struggled as much as any season in its storied history in the SoCon and at the NCAA Division I level to win games. After winning a combined 22 games in his first two seasons, things would begin to take shape for Paris’ Mocs and it would be the season after the COVID-19 in which the Mocs and Paris would be able to get things turned in the right direction. With the acquisition of guys like Malachi Smith from Wright State, Stefan Kenic from Cleveland State, and Josh Ayeni from South Alabama, the Mocs started to make some inroads in the 2020-21 season, starting the campaign by winning the first nine games of the season. The Mocs would go on to finish out the season with 18-8 in the shortened season due to the pandemic, which included a 9-7 mark in Southern Conference play. The Mocs were knocked out of the conference tournament by league rival East Tennessee State, dropping a 63-53 decision to ETSU. One of the unfortunate developments prior to tip-off of that game was the Mocs were without Malachi Smith, who had tested positive for COVID-19, and that was severely detrimental to the Mocs moving far in the tournament. In the 2021-22 season, the Mocs went into the season as the preseason favorites, and would end up returning to the NCAA Tournament for the first time in six years, knocking off Furman in overtime in what was one of the best SoCon Tournament title games in the great history of the league, with David Jean-Baptiste’s 36-footer at the buzzer of overtime sending Chattanooga to the NCAA Tournament with a 64-63 win over the Paladins. Following the heartbreaking 54-53 loss to Illinois in an opening round NCAA Tournament clash in Pittsburgh, the Mocs finished with a 27-8 record and posted the outright SoCon title with a 14-4 mark. Not 48 hours after the loss to the Illini, Paris was named as the new head coach of the South Carolina Gamecocks where he remains presently installed as the head coach of the Gamecocks. Paris finished his five seasons at UTC with an 87-72 overall record. In his final season at UTC, Paris was selected by his peers as the league’s coach of the year.

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— David Moore (@MooreMotivated) June 26, 2025

Bucky McMillan (Samford, 2020-25)–The most recent coach to make the jump from the mid-major level to the power six level of coaching in college basketball is Bucky McMillan, who has agreed to become the head coach at Texas A&M following the 2024-25 season. He won 99 games in five seasons as the head coach at Samford, which included leading the Bulldogs to the 2024 NCAA Tournament, as well as an NIT at-large invitation this past season. McMillan was selected as the SoCon’s Coach of the Year on three different seasons, winning the award in 2021-22, ’22-23, and ’23-24. No coach won more games in the Southern Conference over a four-year span than McMillan did. He inherited a mess when he took over at Samford during the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, and it wasn’t all too unlike what Medved was left when he took over at Furman, or what Paris found when he took over at Chattanooga. He helped the Bulldogs reach a new prestige by the time he exited for College Station to become the newest head coach of the Texas A&M Aggies this past spring. He won just six games total in the season after COVID-19, as the Bulldogs finished with a record of just 6-13 overall and 2-9 in Southern Conference play, which saw the Bulldogs finish dead-last (10th) in the SoCon in his first season as the head coach. Over the next four years, however, no team in the SoCon would win more games, as Bucky Ball had a notable impact and became the craze and the talk around the Southern Conference and throughout mid-major basketball.