The NCAA women’s basketball coaching carousel will start to turn sooner rather than later, as programs either jettison or double down on a coach that’s had a less-than-stellar year. As it stands right now, there’s five coaching candidates that I see as ‘On Some Type of Hot Seat’. The natures of their hot seats are different, the temperatures vary and whether or not their schools even care to make a change is up for debate.

So who is in a bit of trouble and needs to string some wins together down this final stretch in February? Let’s dive in…

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Hot Seat Index: Star Packing Your Bags…

I’m simply not sure what happened in College Station but this feels long overdue. Joni Taylor came to Aggieland on the back of two straight NCAA tournament trips and a .651 winning percentage at Georgia. Was it too big a job in hindsight? Potentially. Taylor had been the head coach at a prominent and historically significant SEC program for seven years and had narrowly missed the Sweet Sixteen in her final two seasons in Athens. The bones were there.

But man, it’s been an abject disaster at Texas A&M. The program painstakingly built by Gary Blair into a national powerhouse has effectively collapsed on itself outside of one 19-13 season that resulted in a 2024 NCAA Tournament bid. The roster is unremarkable, the juice is gone and the fans seem apathetic. If the powers that be at A&M care about the program, I’d imagine she’ll be gone by season’s end.

Hot Seat Index: Had Us In The First Half…

I was surprised that Kieger didn’t get let go last season. There were allegations of misconduct and a toxic locker room culture that made it into the Penn State student newspaper as the Nittany Lions went 10-19 and a brutal 1-17 in Big Ten play. But then Kieger managed to save her job by loading up on interesting players in the transfer portal.

That hasn’t panned out either. Much like A&M, Penn State has been a historic (if not flawed) women’s basketball program that’s been in a position of prevalence before. Kieger is 80-116 in seven years at the helm in State College and it may be time to cut bait especially given how much of a mess this year looks to be.

Hot Seat Index: Hot But Likely Safe For A Season

Realignment hit Washington State a little more acutely than Oregon State for several reasons but one was more obvious than most: Corvallis is far away but at least it’s on a major highway in a major transit corridor. Pullman is, well, Pullman. There’s only so much one can do. But this year’s Washington State team has bottomed out so significantly it can make you wonder if this is a one year rebuild or a portent of things to come.

Either way, I don’t think she’s in any real danger of losing her job. She’s got a conference title from 2023 to coast on and the WCC promises quick upward mobility if you can get the right players in for a season.

Hot Seat Index: Monitoring But Not Red Hot Yet…

I want to be clear when I say this: Niele Ivey is a good coach. She may be a very good coach. But there’s a little bit of Nicki Collen/Baylor syndrome happening here and I wonder how long the powers-that-be with the program are going to allow it. So what is this syndrome? Well it’s the curse of a solid coach, asked to follow a legend, who does well enough to stay employed but not good enough to match the lofty expectations of their predecessor. Are four straight Sweet Sixteens and two ACC titles in the last three years enough? Even as this season looks completely lost in South Bend?

I say yes but we are also monitoring how the rest of this year (and the coming player movement afterward) goes.

Hot Seat Index: Red Hot…But Does BC Care?

I sometimes wonder if Boston College has any interest in their women’s basketball program as a money making venture? We know that Beantown is a pro sports city and, even with new NIL and revenue sharing rules, it would be really hard to dump money into BC football and make a dent in the Patriots chokehold on the media landscape. BC men’s hoops has the same issue in a coverage area saturated by the Bruins and Celtics.

So why not women’s basketball? There’s no WNBA team in the city and the NWSL doesn’t get going until the summer. The northeast is a talent rich environment for high level players. So if you really wanted to swing and get away from Bernabei-McNamee, who appears to be bottoming out after two 20 win seasons in 2019-20 and 2021-22, why not try? Given how awful BC is this year and how regularly they’re getting raided in the portal, it might be worth considering.

Who do you think is on the hot seat or who should be? Let us know in the comments and subscribe to our free daily newsletter for the best women’s hoops news in your inbox!