Marching to Madness

Coach David Riley comes into the Palouse after leading Eastern Washington to a 62-38 record in his three seasons as the head coach. The Eagles also won the Big Sky regular season title in the last two seasons. Coach Riley's brother, David is a defensive assistant with the Baltimore Ravens, and his uncle is Mike Riley the former head football coach at Nebraska, Oregon State, and the San Diego Charg...

Coach Randy Bennett checks in on "Marching to Madness" as his Gaels took both the WCC regular season championship and the tournament title this past season. Bennett has been at Saint Mary's for 23 seasons where he currently has posted a 533-216 ledger as he has won 71.2 percent of his games. SMC has enjoyed the success of Gaels basketball as Coach Bennett has presided over three WCC regular season...

Coach Will Wade led his McNeese Cowboys to a 30-4 record in his first season in Lake Charles, La. His Cowboys won the Southland Conference post-season tournament and the regular season. Coach Wade and his staff improved the program by 19 games last season as this was the best improvement by any team in the nation. McNeese had a superstar in Shahada Wells, who was the player of the year in the Sout...

Coach Cuonzo Martin returns to Springfield, Missouri, for the second time as he is again the head coach of the Missouri State Bears, a position he held from 2008-2011. Coach Martin is a successful coach in a myriad of ways as he took Tennessee, Cal, and Missouri into the NCAA Tournament while winning 57.1 percent of his contests so far in his career. He also took Missouri State to the MVC regular...

Michigan Wolverines head basketball coach Dusty May led Florida Atlantic to the NCAA Final Four in 2023 and now, Coach May is back in the Big Ten as he was an Indiana graduate and on the staff of the Hoosiers. Coach May discusses his time at Indiana and making Eastern Michigan a springboard for his coaching career. After a 60-13 record in his last two seasons, May moves to Michigan where the Wolve...

Coach Chris Jans returns to "Marching to Madness" after taking Mississippi State to its first appearance in back-to-back NCAA Tournaments since 2008-09. Jans loses big man Tolu Smith in the middle, but a major key will be the return of dynamic Josh Hubbard to the point guard position. Mississippi State has also had success with incoming transfers as the Bulldogs currently have six incoming transfe...

Coach Amir Abdur-Rahim checks in as he led the Bulls to a record-setting season at an unbelievably high level in year one at USF. He led the Bulls to their first regular season title in school history and a 25-8 record where the 25 wins were the most in the biography of South Florida basketball. In addition, the Bulls went 16-2 and finished two games ahead of second-place Florida Atlantic. Those 1...

Coach Lanier takes over the basketball program at Rice after the Owls slipped to 11-21, but won four of five games on the road. Lanier transitions from SMU where he took the Mustangs to 20 wins only one year after SMU only won 10 in the 2022-23 season. Before then, he took the Georgia State Panthers to the NCAA Tournament in 2021 when they won the Sun Belt Conference Tournament as he compiled a 53...

Portland head coach Shantay Legans and his Pilots had a tough 23-24 season with some injuries and academic casualties. The fourth-year Pilots coach will look to build his team to improve from a season where they finished tied for sixth in the WCC. Legans talks about how he feels he should have handled and maneuvered the transfer portal better. He welcomes back Vukasin Masic while adding a pair of...

Coach Nick McDevitt is back on "Marching to Madness" as he discusses the Blue Raiders, who finished in a four-way tie for fourth in Conference USA this past season. He talks about the changes in CUSA since he came to Murfreesboro and a peak at resetting the roster for the '24-25 season. Topics of Discussion Include: Upsetting La. Tech in the CUSA Tournament as three teams tied for fourth Building...

Coach Ingelsby has built a solid foundation for the Delaware Blue Hens. in the challenging CAA. Delaware has posted five winning seasons and a CAA Tournament title in his eight seasons with the Blue Hens. He posted another solid recruiting season with Jyare Davis heading to Syracuse and Gerald Drumgoole bound for Pitt. Topics of Discussion Include: How additions and subtractions of players via the...

Coach Golding initially appears on the "Marching to Madness" CBB podcast, discussing his UTEP Miners who tied for fourth in the Conference USA basketball regular season. Then, the Miners made it to the conference tournament championship game for the first time since 2011, but they lost a 78-71 decision to Western Kentucky. Coach Golding discusses raising Abilene Christian, his alma mater, from D-2...

The Bruins tied for fourth in the Missouri Valley Conference and finished with the 5-seed in the tournament. Belmont lost five starters as the roster had two seniors but Ja'kobi Gillespie (Maryland), Cade Tyson (North Carolina), and Malik Dia (Ole Miss) all hit the transfer portal. The Bruins finished 8-3 in their last 11 games as Gillespie returned from injury and was a key in pushing the strong...

Coach Bruce Pearl returns to the "Marching to Madness" college basketball podcast as you see him live on the left screen and my background on the right is coach Pearl working a game on the sidelines. Auburn won its second SEC Tournament in the last five seasons with wins over NCAAT participants South Carolina, Mississippi State, and Florida. Auburn has seen five 20-win seasons in Pearl's tenure wh...

Fresno State head coach Vance Walberg made his first trip into the "Marching to Madness" CBB podcast as he looks to push the Bulldogs back into a position where they are a solid challenger in the tough Mountain West Conference. Coach Walberg has coached the game for 40 years at all levels, including 697 wins and 16 league titles as a prep coach. He has worked in the NBA for the Sacramento Kings, P...

Coach Jim Les just finished his 11th season at UC Davis where he led the Aggies to within one game of the NCAA Tournament while they finished the season second in the Big West basketball regular season. Coach Les discusses the campus as well as giving plenty of ideas in coaching and his thoughts and ideas inside the game. We discuss Big West Player of the Year Elijah Pepper who has moved on to the...

Coach Taylor just finished his 11th season at CSF as he worked on a rebuild in '23-24. He posted back-to-back 20-win seasons in '21-22 and '22-23 and placed the Titans in two of their four NCAA appearances dating back to when the program was born in NCAA Division-1 hoops in 1975. He loses his top three scorers in DJ Brewton, Tory San Antonio, and Max Jones, but has five new players that will be ab...

Coach Mike Jones drops by "Marching to Madness" once again as his talented Spartans finished tied for second with Chattanooga in the Southern Conference in 2023-24. Jones loses three of his top players as Mikeal Brown-Jones was the SoCon's second-leading scorer with 18.9 ppg. Twins Keyshaun and Kobe Langley finished their fifth years at UNCG as they were two of the top defensive players in the lea...

Coach Frank Haith returns to "Marching to Madness" as he looks forward to his second season as an assistant coach on Coach Rodney Terry's staff. Haith is following an assistant coaching position at Memphis in 2022-23 and he spent 2004-2022 as the head coach at Miami, Missouri, and Tulsa, winning 343 games in those 17 seasons. Haith was second on the all-time wins list with 138 'Ws' at Tulsa just a...

Coach Driscoll chatted about the potential NBA opportunity or high-major transfer for Chaz Lanier who along with Dorian James graduated from UNF on Friday, James earned his M.S. while Lanier was presented with his Bachelor's Degree. Driscoll has organized the North Florida basketball team as a current player in the Atlantic Sun where the Ospreys played one of the toughest non-conference schedules...

UMass head basketball coach Frank Martin led the Minutemen to a 20-11 record, finishing 11-7 in the Atlantic-10 and receiving a double-bye in the A-10 Tournament. The 2023-24 season was UMass's first 20-win campaign since 2013-14 when they were 24-9 and this was also the last season the Minutemen made it to the NCAA Tournament. Coach Martin took South Carolina to it's only Final Four and Elite Eig...

Legendary Coach Jim Harrick is back on "Marching to Madness" as he posted 'W's' in 470 games in his career. We remember 1995 when he became the only UCLA coach since John Wooden to lead the Bruins to a national championship. Harrick took UCLA to the national championship in 1995 as he was the National Coach of the Year and the Pac-12 Coach of the Year during that season. He is still the second-win...

Coach Gillen does a stellar job as the college basketball analyst for CBSSN on predominantly Mountain West Conference. We discuss NC State as an upstart in winning 9 in a row to get to the Final Four where we also discussed UConn winning the first back-to-back title in 17 years. We had a good SEC/ACC discussion as well as some excellent thoughts about coaches from several different stops. Topics o...

Coach Magpayo steered a young Highlanders team into a tough out from the middle to later part of the season. UCR ended up winning eight out of their last 11 games as they defeated a top UC Irvine Anteaters squad, 88-78, and made it to the semifinals of the Big West Tournament with a win over Cal State Bakersfield before losing to eventual champion Long Beach State. Barrington Hargress, Isaiah Mose...

Coach Eran Ganot checks in after his Warriors finished the season with 10 wins in their last 14 games. The competitiveness gave them an opening night win in the Big West Tournament and put them in a position to face Cal-Davis in the semi-finals where they lost a tough 68-65 decision. Coach Ganot has led the Warriors to winning percentages in each of the last seven seasons as they posted their firs...