Five ASU men’s basketball coaching candidates

TEMPE – Arizona State has moved on from coach Bobby Hurley, launching a search for his replacement that will shape the future of the men’s basketball program.

A mix of experienced winners, rising head coaches and a familiar face have emerged as potential candidates.

The next hire will be critical for athletic director Graham Rossini as Arizona State looks to stabilize a program that has struggled to find sustained success first in the Pac-12 Conference and again after moving to the Big 12.

Here are five candidates to watch:

Randy Bennett, Saint Mary’s

A Mesa native, Bennett’s name has been tied to Arizona State for some time now. He was originally a candidate to replace Rob Evans at ASU in 2006 when the school decided to go with Herb Sendek instead, and 20 years later, here we are again. 

Bennett has been uber successful in his 25 years at Saint Mary’s, turning the Gaels into a mid-major powerhouse in the West Coast Conference alongside Gonzaga. The 63 year-old has garnered 20 wins in 18 of the past 19 seasons, and the lone season he came up short of that mark, Saint Mary’s had five games canceled due to COVID-19. 

The Gaels are 243-58 in conference play over that same span, and Bennett has a career winning percentage of .722, a far cry from ASU’s mediocre all-time .528 winning percentage over 114 seasons. Bennett played basketball at Westwood High School and then at Mesa Community College before transferring to UC San Diego. While at MCC, he played for his father, Tom Bennett, a junior college coaching legend in Arizona who posted 11 consecutive 20-plus win seasons and was named the 1990 NJCAA National Coach of the Year after leading his team to a No. 1 ranking. This seems like one of the most obvious fits this cycle. The question is, will Graham Rossini pull the trigger when former athletic director Lisa Love would not back in 2006? 

Bennett accolades: 

• Four-time WCC tournament champions (2010, 2012, 2019, 2024)
• Seven-time WCC regular season champions (2011, 2012, 2016, 2023–2026)
• Seven-time WCC Coach of the Year (2008, 2011, 2016, 2022–2025)

Eric Olen, New Mexico

The other obvious fit during this coaching cycle is New Mexico’s Eric Olen, who would represent a younger, high-upside hire if that is what Rossini is looking for in his next coach. Plus, he has  strong ties to the West Coast. Olen arrived in Albuquerque in 2025 and led the Lobos to 24 wins and was on the brink of an NCAA tournament berth. Before that, he spent 21 years at UC San Diego, including 12 as head coach, where he successfully guided the program’s transition from Division II to Division I. 

In his final two seasons, the Tritons went a combined 51-17 with a first-place finish in the Big West. He has won 20 or more games in each of the past three seasons and was named Big West Coach of the Year in both 2024 and 2025. There is also a personal connection at play here. Rossini attended elementary and junior high school with Olen in Mobile, Alabama, something to keep an eye on and a relationship that could factor into the search.

Olen accolades:

• Two-time Big West Coach of the Year (2024, 2025)
• Two-time CCAA Coach of the Year (2017, 2020)
• NABC Pacific District Coach of the Year (2025)

Jerrod Calhoun, Utah State

Jerrod Calhoun has quickly built momentum as one of the fastest-rising coaches in the country. In two seasons at Utah State, Calhoun has gone 55-14, earning Mountain West Coach of the Year honors in 2026 after leading the Aggies to a regular-season title, a tournament title and NCAA tournament appearances in both seasons. His Aggies ninth-seeded Aggies were able to hang with No. 1 seed Arizona before falling 78-66 in this year’s NCAA Tournament’s second round.

Calhoun has a track record of building winning programs quickly, as he did with DII Fairmont State and Youngstown State out of the Horizon, going a combined 242-144 in 12 seasons. At 44, he would bring energy and recent success at multiple levels.

Calhoun accolades:

• Horizon League Coach of the Year (2023)
• MW Coach of the Year (2026) 
• MEC regular season champion (2017)
• Horizon League regular season champion (2023)
• MWC regular season champion (2026)
• MWC tournament champion (2026)

Mark Madsen, California

A name that has somewhat come out of nowhere in the last few days is California coach Mark Madsen. After serving as an assistant coach on the Los Angeles Lakers bench for six years, Madsen took a big leap of faith, agreeing to become the coach at Utah Valley in 2019 following Mark Pope’s successful run there. Pope parlayed into the BYU and Kentucky jobs.

Within four years, Madsen had the Wolverines at 28 wins and 15-3 in conference, but had to settle for the NIT after falling to Southern Utah by one point in the semifinals of the WAC tournament. 

Madsen, who played and coached at Stanford before his stint with the Lakers, is deeply rooted in California. He was born less than 30 minutes from Cal Berkeley’s campus, which made his hiring in 2023 somewhat of a homecoming. In just three seasons, Madsen has guided the Golden Bears to a 20-win season and an NIT appearance. That all makes a potential move to Arizona State a bit perplexing, but his name has gained some traction. Madsen would bring both NBA experience and familiarity with West Coast recruiting.

Madsen accolades:

• Two-time WAC regular season champion (2021, 2023)
• WAC Coach of the Year (2023)

Derek Glasser, UCSB (assistant coach)

This could be the most out-of-left-field hire that ASU has ever made in any revenue sport if this comes to fruition. Former ASU guard Derek Glasser, the school’s all-time assist leader and currently an assistant coach at UCSB, is trying to rally support for his candidacy and has been gaining more and more traction as of late. 

This is a hire that would follow the Kenny Dillingham/Willie Bloomquist model of hiring a hometown product who was an ASU alum. However, Glasser is less qualified for the job than Dillingham and even Bloomquist were, given their resumes. Glasser has been an assistant coach the past five years – three years with UCSB and the previous two with Rice. He was also a video coordinator at Rice for two seasons and an assistant coach at Caltech for one.

What seems to be doing most of the talking here is the money, energy and enthusiasm Glasser could bring to Tempe. Glasser would reportedly get significant financial backing from former high school and college teammate James Harden, the Cleveland Cavaliers star, if he were named the coach. It remains to be seen if that same financial commitment would be made if Glasser was brought aboard as an assistant. 

Glasser accolades:

• Helped lead UC Santa Barbara to 2023 Big West regular season and tournament championships, an NCAA Tournament appearance, and a school-record 27 wins.
• While at Rice (2020-2022, helped Owls to three consecutive 15-win seasons for first time since 2006.

Honorable Mention: Jase Coburn, Portland State

Jase Coburn may be the middle ground between Glasser and candidates like Olen and Calhoun. He offers some local ties, although not as many as Glasser, along with the profile of a successful, non-Power Four conference rising young head coach. His name is nowhere near as hot as Olen’s and Calhoun’s. 

Coburn is considered more of a second tier candidate, who could be on everybody’s A-list in the next hiring cycle. But it’s always good to get ahead. ASU could have had Eric Olen last year, when his buyout from UC San Diego would have only been $150,000. Now that number is in the $2-million range and there will be much more competition this time around. 

An Arizona State alum who grew up in the Valley, Coburn got his start as an assistant coach at Corona del Sol High School, a traditional hoops powerhouse in Tempe, before moving on to Phoenix Junior College in the same role. He was named the head coach at McClintock High School in Tempe at the age of 23 in 2007 and led the Chargers to a state championship by the time he was 26. 

Coburn has since turned around the Portland State program, taking over there as head coach in 2021. He has produced two of the program’s top three seasons in wins over the past 17 years, including a Big Sky regular season championship in 2026.

Coburn accolades:

• Big Sky Coach of the Year (2026)
• Big Sky regular season champion (2026)

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