Porter Moser was the coaching darling of the NCAA Tournament going into last weekend’s Sweet 16. The architect of Loyola-Chicago’s turnaround season was lauded as the next hot coach on the market and his athletic director vowed to give him a hefty raise to keep him.
What went unmentioned was that Moser entered the season on the hot seat, having lost more games than he’d won in six previous seasons with the Ramblers. But then Moser guided Loyola, an 11 seed, to upset victories over Miami and Tennessee in the span of 48 hours and his entire coaching profile changed.
That’s the power of March Madness.
“There’s such a premium on the NCAA Tournament now, it’s just incredible. It’s a phenomenon,” said Bret Just, a CAA Sports agent who represents college coaches ranging from Texas’ Shaka Smart to UMBC’s Ryan Odom, who engineered the historic 16-seed-over-1-seed win against Virginia. “You go all season basically getting no exposure and then you get a chance to show what you can do on the biggest stage. It’s massive for these coaches.”
Porter Moser has become a hot commodity thanks to Loyola-Chicago’s March run.getty images
ESPN analyst Dan Dakich, a former coach at Bowling Green, said these March Madness shockers by Moser and Odom will become part of their identity — and résumé.
“A guy who wins one in the tournament, he’s looked at differently,” Dakich said. “Success in the tournament follows you as a coach forever. That’s a big deal. Every AD wants to say, ‘Hey, we got an Elite Eight coach.’ It’s a badge of honor.”
Coaches have used NCAA Tournament runs to propel themselves into better-paying jobs before. In Stan Heath’s first season as a head coach at Kent State, his team went to the 2002 Elite Eight and Arkansas quickly plucked him. Bruce Pearl rode a first-round upset win from Wisconsin-Milwaukee to Tennessee in 2005.
But the value being placed on wins in March has never been higher than the last five years, say those close to the game. An NCAA Tournament run makes it a lot easier for the AD and the newly hired coach to win the press conference.
“It’s that signature win that a coach needs to be recognized,” Just said.
One of Just’s first clients was Andy Enfield, the coach who famously parlayed a run to the Sweet 16 with 15th-seeded Florida Gulf Coast into the Southern California job in 2013. “An epic rise,” Just said. “Coaches weren’t making that kind of a jump based on one weekend before.”
More recently, Brad Underwood vaulted from Stephen F. Austin to Oklahoma State and eventually Illinois on the momentum of two NCAA Tournament upset wins. Chris Beard, who has overseen a revival at Texas Tech, got there on the strength of a tournament shocker over Purdue when he was the coach at Arkansas-Little Rock.
And just last week, UConn hired Danny Hurley after he registered consecutive first-round wins at Rhode Island, and Ole Miss hired Kermit Davis, who toiled relatively unknown at Middle Tennessee State for 16 years with just one losing season. But Davis’ phone didn’t start ringing until after the 15th-seeded Blue Raiders stunned Michigan State two seasons ago.
“There’s no question the tournament puts coaches on the biggest stage possible and builds their profile,” said Ross Bjork, the Ole Miss athletic director who hired Davis. “What really attracted us to him was that he built an NCAA Tournament program, not just a one-hit wonder. You have a great run, you make a splash, but he also has done it for the long haul and that’s just as important.”
A win in the tournament doesn’t guarantee a coach of moving up the coaching food chain. A number of them, like Northern Iowa’s Ben Jacobson and Randy Bennett of St. Mary’s, have elected to stay at the school where they’ve enjoyed success. Others who made a name for themselves in the tournament, such as Smart and Archie Miller, took a more patient approach, waiting a few years after deep March Madness runs before leaping — Smart from VCU to Texas, Miller from Dayton to Indiana.
Kermit Davis parlayed success at Middle Tennessee State into the Ole Miss job.getty images
Moser, Odom and Buffalo’s Nate Oats, whose 13th-seeded Bulls trounced Arizona, could be among the next wave of coaching Cinderellas who are presented opportunities based on upset wins in March.
“A lot of these guys might only get to the tournament once every six or seven years, so you have to act on it while you can,” said Katy Young, who conducts coaching searches for Witt/Kieffer. “You can be the greatest coach in the world, but if you’re in a one-bid league and you can’t get out of your conference, nobody’s going to know. … My favorite line is, ‘You have to be known to be needed.’ It’s hard to get noticed if you’re not playing in March.”
Not everyone places such a premium on March. Jason Charney, an agent who represents several coaches in the mid-major ranks, despises the phenomenon of March Madness making and breaking careers.
“I’m different than a lot of people, but I find all the hype around winning a game in the tournament utterly ridiculous,” Charney said. “It’s fun, but it’s one game. It’s much harder to win the regular season than if you get hot for a few days. Winning a game in the tournament isn’t everything, but a lot of people want to see the stamp.”
Don’t tell Underwood, who coached 14th-seeded Stephen F. Austin past West Virginia in 2016 and left for Oklahoma State. Even though Underwood lost just one game in three years in the Southland Conference, going 53-1, his success in the tournament opened doors the regular season could not.
“We had a 29-game winning streak and nobody knew,” Underwood said. “Getting into the tournament magnifies everything 1,000 times. It’s sad in some ways because it’s seen as a stamp of approval. You sort of become the flavor of the day. But it can also change lives.”
After beating West Virginia, Underwood said, “Not to sound egotistical, but it was ‘Take your pick’ of jobs.”
Whether Loyola-Chicago’s postseason success leads Moser to a new job or earns him a raise in his current position, he’s no longer known as the journeyman coach with a losing record. He’s the new darling of March.
“We want Porter to be our coach a long time,” Loyola AD Steve Watson said. “He might be an overnight sensation, but people who know him are not surprised.”
