Despite a section of the fanbase that wants him fired, the Wisconsin Badgers have been a consistent winner throughout Greg Gard’s tenure as head coach. Gard has a record of 212–117, won 117 Big Ten games, and won two regular-season shared titles. In addition, Gard has two Sweet 16 appearances in 2016 and 2017. This season might have even been his best coaching job yet.
Gard has accomplished feats in Madison that some programs have not achieved since the turn of the century. Two of those programs are Iowa and Minnesota, which are looking to turn around their respective men’s basketball programs starting next season.
Wisconsin Badger fans will be introduced to new rival coaches in 2025-26
On Monday, the Iowa Hawkeyes made it official by hiring Drake men’s basketball coach Ben McCollum as the next head coach in Iowa City. McCollum takes over for Badger villain Fran McCaffery, the program’s all-time wins leader who was fired the day after Iowa bowed out of the Big Ten tournament.
Before coming to Drake, McCollum was an ultra-successful head coach at Division II Northwest Missouri State, where he won 394 games and four (!!) NCAA championships. In his only season at Drake, McCollum, with a roster consisting of Division II transfers headlined by Bennett Stirtz, went 31-4 with wins over Vanderbilt and Kansas State and won both the Missouri Valley Conference regular-season and tournament crown.
McCollum takes over a Hawkeyes team that finished with a 17-16 record and a second-consecutive season without an NCAA tournament berth. The Hawkeyes have not reached the Sweet 16 since 1999, Dr. Tom Davis’ final season at Iowa, and have not won at least a share of the Big Ten regular-season crown since 1979.
In the Twin Cities, Colorado State head coach and Minnesota alum Niko Medved accepted the Golden Gophers’ men’s basketball head coaching position. Medved takes over for Ben Johnson, who finished with a 56-71 record, including an 0-7 record against Wisconsin.
Medved comes to Minnesota with a 222-172 record that includes stops at Furman, Drake, and Colorado State. At CSU, Medved, who coached John Tonje in Fort Collins, won 143 games in the 2025 Mountain West tournament and earned three invitations to the NCAA tournament. He takes over a program at Minnesota that has not only failed to make the Big Dance since 2019 but hasn’t made the second weekend since their vacated 1997 Final Four season.