English Out at Providence: Napolillo’s Next Hire Comes Down to Ceiling vs. Floor Between Two Finalists

As expected, Kim English is officially out as the men's head basketball coach at Providence College per Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports Network.

In a statement, athletic director Steve Napolillo wrote, "We appreciate Kim and his staff for their efforts over the past three seasons leading our men's basketball team," Napolillo said in a statement. "We wish him and his family all the best in the future."

For both English and the Friars, it presents a fresh start and new opportunities. Providence will once again seek their next long term head coach for the program just three years after previous head coach Ed Cooley departed for Georgetown. For English, it presents an opportunity to look in the mirror and self-reflect on his three years coaching in one of the best conferences in college basketball after taking a massive leap from the Atlantic 10 where he only coached for just two seasons.

Looking back on the English era, not only will it be one of the biggest disappointments in program history, but also a time defined by inexperience as that is the key word that comes to mind for me.

Cooley coached the Friars for 12 seasons and had five seasons of head coaching experience at Fairfield before he took the PC job. In contrast, English only had two years of head coaching experience at George Mason before taking the Providence job and only lasted for three in Friartown. Once again, inexperience.

Taking another step back, what also comes to me is the word and concept of timelines. After Cooley left for Georgetown, Napolillo needed to hire another coach like Cooley in my opinion who had a surplus of head coaching experience under his belt in order to keep the program at the very least stable after reaching the Sweet 16 for only the sixth time in program history. English certainly deserves blame for the failed three years, but Napolillo is not and should not be off the hook at all for this one either.

Like English, Napolillo is still fairly new to his job as well as he has only been the athletic director for just under four years. He went for the home run, high ceiling upside hire with English who is only 37 years old and struck out looking. To put a bow in it, both English and Napolillo simply did not have enough experience by themselves and together to be the next long-term marriage in Friartown, as Napolillo will get a second opportunity to hire the next head coach and learn from his wrongdoings in the hiring of English. Let's just hope that the next head coach is not a name highlighted in an article on Napolillo's desk like how English's' was.

Here are the two finalists for who will be the next head coach patrolling the sidelines next season:

Bryan Hodgson (South Florida)

Years of head coaching experience: 3

After Josh Schertz recently signed a multiyear extension with Saint Louis, Hodgson immediately becomes the biggest domino to fall in this year's offseason coaching carousel. Per Jeff Goodman of The Field of 68, Hodgson is the leader in the clubhouse, although he does have multiple options. At the moment it seems he is down between Providence and Syracuse with Syracuse pushing hard to get it done even though they don't have the NIL resources that Providence does.

While only three years of head coaching experience may scare you away from Hodgson, in these three years he has achieved 20+ wins in each season with a 70-37 overall record. Before taking over the reins at Arkansas State, Hodgson was an assistant coach at Buffalo from 2015-2019 and Alabama from 2019-2023. During these eight years he had the opportunity to learn under Alabama's head coach Nate Oats who is known as one of the better recruiters in the country. Furthermore, Hodgson was the lead recruiter at Alabama and oversaw a 2022 recruting class which was ranked third in the nation by 247Sports, that class included Brandon Miller who turned out to be the second overall pick by the Charlotte Hornets in the 2023 NBA Draft.

Not only this, but Oats' offenses are always high scoring as the Crimson Tide currently rank as the highest scoring team in the country at 91.7 points per game per TeamRankings. This should excite a lot of Friar fans. While Hodgson and the Bulls had an early exit in the big dance, this does not change my opinion on him whatsoever, as he has proven the ability to overachieve and rebuild programs in a short amount of time. This is exactly what Providence needs and what they thought English was going to be, at least it looked that way after his first season, but the wheels fell off from there. Hodgson, while only being a head coach for three seasons as well has already proved to be more consistent than English. Obviously, this is not a competition between the two as English is gone and won't be returning, but a big enough sample size is there for me in my opinion. Hodgson would be a massive upside and ceiling higher for Providence, he is my number one choice and should be Napolillo's as well.

Herb Sendek (Santa Clara)

Years of head coaching experience: 33

Unlike Hodgson who has some but not a lot of head coaching experience, Sendek is the complete opposite as he brings a wealth of experience to the table as he has been a head coach for over three decades.

What immediately comes to mind for me is the concept of the ceiling versus the floor. In other words, if you are Napolillo whose job is on the hot seat after the way this past men's basketball transpired you have two choices. Do you go for the safer hire in Sendek who has even more head coaching experience than former head coach Ed Cooley who was able to appear in seven NCAA Tournaments in order to keep your job, or do you go for the ceiling hire in Hodgson who is a rising superstar in the coaching ranks who can bring you more upside in a shorter period of time? This is the biggest decision that Napolillo will have to face when determining who he wants to decide between these two candidates besides the obvious experience difference between the two.

Diving deeper into Sendek, over his illustrious 33-year head coaching career he has only made the NCAA Tournament nine times, or a 27% rate if you are doing the math at home. That is somewhat encouraging but also startling to me as that is about once every four years, but if we just learned anything from English's tenure in Friartown it's that once every four years is not going to cut it as English was not even able to see a fourth year.

Here is Sendek's NCAA Tournament history:

• Miami (OH): 1 appearance (1995)
• NC State: 5 appearances (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006)
• Arizona State: 2 appearances (2009, 2014)
• Santa Clara: 1 appearance (2026)
• Four Round of 32 appearances: 1994-1995 (Miami OH), 2001-2002 (NC State), 2003-2004 (NC State), 2008-2009 (Arizona State)
• One Sweet Sixteen appearance: 2004-2005 (NC State)

Obviously, what first stands out is his run at NC State where he was able to make the tournament for five straight seasons, as that is extremely impressive. However, on the flip side what also stands out is his 12-year drought between 2014-2026. Sendek has been the head coach at Santa Clara since 2016 and just made his first NCAA Tournament with the Broncos, albeit on a crushing five-point loss to the Kentucky Wildcats in the round of 64 but I digress. Like English, this ten year gap is not going to cut it. Albeit, he will have more money and resources to work with if we do end up hiring him, but with his amount of experience we should expect to make the tournament in his first if not at the very least second season.

If he were to get hired and not make the tournament after two seasons, Napolillo will find himself gone as well maybe even after the first season if things go poorly. Obviously, these are all hypotheticals, I am trying to emphasize the concept and ideas of timelines as noted above with the Napolillo and English short-term pairing. If we were to hire Sendek, him and Napolillo would be on two completely different timelines as Sendek would come in with over three decades of experience and be with an athletic director who does not even have half a decade under his belt. Sendek would need two to three years in my opinion to build up the program his way and return us to relevancy, but if we don't make the NCAA Tournament after his first year to be hired Napolillo could very well get fired and we will be doing this whole song and dance again this time next year just only looking for a new athletic director instead of a new head coach.

Timing is everything when it comes to hierarchies of collegiate and professional sports organizations especially in today's day and age when schools and franchises can be turned around in just one season like the New England Patriots this past season. Using this example, Herb Sendek would be Mike Vrabel and Steve Napolillo would be Eliot Wolf. The alignment is needed between athletic director and head coach and general manager and head coach.

Napolillo can only hope that either Hodgson or Sendek is his Mike Vrabel and changes the fortunes of the state of the Providence College men's basketball program, it is a lot to ask for but in today's college basketball ecosystem with NIL and the transfer portal and the resources that Providence has in these departments it certainly can be done.

One of these two men will be the 17th head coach in Providence College men's basketball history, my guess and bet is that it will be Bryan Hodgson. Time will tell, but the clock can't tick any faster for Napolillo to make the right hire and return the Friars to conference and national relevancy.