The Chicago Bulls fired Head Coach Fred Hoiberg on Monday. A return to the sidelines at the college level could be the most likely next destination for him.

Stadium NBA Insider Shams Charania has analyzed why the Bulls fired Hoiberg and we’ve examined what’s next for the Bulls. Now we’re diving into the potential, if not likely, return to the college ranks for the former Iowa State coach who led his alma mater to four NCAA tournament appearances in five seasons.

It’s only December 3, which might be too early in the college basketball season to name a list of schools that could have head coaching jobs available in March — we’ll have more on potential landing spots later. But we can certainly examine previous head coaches who had success in college, jumped to the NBA, then returned to the college level, to try to identify possible trends.

The biggest takeaway is that almost every coach who has followed the possible Hoiberg career path of college to NBA to college has gotten an equal, if not better, college job when he returned to the NCAA ranks.

Take, for example, Tim Floyd, who made the same Iowa State-to-Chicago Bulls transition as Hoiberg in 1998.

Floyd, who had previously been the head coach at Idaho and New Orleans at the college level before taking the Iowa State job, spent four seasons in Ames, Iowa, before a three-year stint with the Bulls. He was hired two years later by the New Orleans Hornets, then he became the head coach at USC.

That’s an Iowa State-to-USC transition with two NBA head coaching jobs in between, and the landing of a strong college job post-NBA isn’t out of the ordinary. We’ve seen Providence to Kentucky, UMass to Memphis, Illinois to UNLV, and Stanford to California, among others that we’ll lay out below.

Here’s a list of some notable head coaches who have had the college-to-NBA-to-college career arc.

Note: Some of the coaches had multiple stops in the NBA before returning to the college ranks.

Coach	College Before Taking NBA Job	Record	NBA Team	Record	Next College Head Coaching Job	Record
Rick Pitino	Providence	42-23 (.646)	Knicks	90-74 (.549)	Kentucky	219-50 (.814)
Rick Pitino	Kentucky	219-50 (.814)	Celtics	102-146 (.411)	Louisville	416-143 (.744)
John Calipari	UMass	193-71 (.731)	Nets	72-112 (.391)	Memphis	252-69 (.785)
Lon Kruger	Illinois	81-48 (.628)	Hawks	69-122 (.361)	UNLV	161-71 (.694)
Tim Floyd	Iowa State	81-47 (.633)	Bulls	49-190 (.205)	USC	85-50 (.630)
Mike Montgomery	Stanford	392-168 (.700)	Warriors	68-96 (.415)	California	130-73 (.640)
Reggie Theus	New Mexico State	41-23 (.641)	Kings	44-62 (.415)	Cal State Northridge	53-105 (.335)
Leonard Hamilton	Miami (FL)	144-147 (.495)	Wizards	19-63 (.232)	Florida State	333-209 (.614)
Larry Krystkowiak	Montana	42-20 (.677)	Bucks	31-69 (.310)	Utah	142-100 (.587)
Larry Brown	UCLA	42-17 (.712)	Nets	91-67 (.576)	Kansas	135-44 (.754)
Larry Brown	Kansas	135-44 (.754)	Spurs	153-131 (.539)	SMU	85-39 (.685)

 

Stadium’s Jeff Goodman mentioned UCLA and Minnesota as potential landing spots for Hoiberg if either school were to make a coaching change after this season. Goodman reported UCLA “intrigued” Hoiberg last offseason if he and UCLA coach Steve Alford had both been relieved of their respective positions.

The Bruins are 6-2 after losses to Michigan State and North Carolina in the sixth season of Alford’s tenure. The Golden Gophers are also 6-2 after double-digit road losses to Boston College and Ohio State.

Minnesota coach Richard Pitino is also in his sixth season at his school and the Gophers have made the NCAA tournament just once in the last five seasons.

Hoiberg could be a good fit in the Big Ten or at a school in the Midwest, especially when considering he’s a native of Ames, Iowa, who attended college at Iowa State and later coached there, and he played for the Pacers, Bulls and Timberwolves in the NBA. Other potential high-major openings next offseason could include Penn State, Maryland, Nebraska and Wake Forest if those schools fail to make the NCAA tournament.