Ranking the Top Candidates to Replace Rick Barnes as Texas Head Coach

Rick Barnes' mostly successful—but not so much lately—tenure at Texas is over. Per ESPN.com's Jeff Goodman and Jeff Borzello, the school fired its longtime coach Saturday after 17 seasons and more than 400 wins.

Though Barnes' run the last several years was less than impressive, that has no bearing on the desirability of this job. Much like when football coach Mack Brown stepped down following the 2013 season, an opening in Austin shoots right to the front of the line to ride the offseason coaching carousel.

And not surprisingly, the names getting mentioned to replace Barnes include plenty of heavy hitters.

It's mostly speculation at this point, but we've assembled a list of the best potential candidates to succeed Barnes, ranked based on how well they'd fit with the program, the likelihood they'd be willing to make the move and the chance that Texas athletic director Steve Patterson would want them.

Current school: Florida (19 years)

Record at school: 467-186

Career record: 502-206

If not for Billy Donovan, Florida wouldn't have as much of a basketball history as it does.

Before he arrived in 1996, the school had reached the Sweet 16 just twice. But under his watch the Gators have eight more trips along with four Final Fours, three title game appearances and two national championships.

Donovan's Florida teams in 2006 and 2007 were the last to repeat as champs.

At this point, there's not much left for Donovan to do in Gainesville, which is why he's flirted with leaving before. Not long after his second title, he briefly accepted the Orlando Magic job in the NBA but then backed out and returned to the Gators, making four more Elite Eight appearances (along with a Final Four trip last season) before finishing below .500 this year.

Despite his prolonged success, Florida's facilities are far behind most other top programs. The school is just starting on a $45 million renovation of O'Connell Center, which only holds just under 12,000. Compare that to Texas' Frank Erwin Center, which holds more than 16,000 and had a $55 million face-lift in the early 2000s.

Donovan is heavily devoted to Florida and close to athletic director Jeremy Foley, but if he ever decided to take a different college job, this could be just the one.

Current school: Oklahoma (Four years)

Record at school: 82-49

Career record: 561-353

If one can get past the notion that Texas hiring someone from the other side of the Red River would be sacrilegious to most Longhorns fans, there would be a very good, simple reason to risk that blasphemy for Lon Kruger: He wins, no matter where he goes.

Kruger's Sooners fell Friday night in the Sweet 16, but it was the fourth different program he's led that far in the NCAA tournament. He previously did it at UNLV, Florida and Kansas State, and he also took Illinois to the tournament three times in his four seasons there.

"Lon Kruger is college basketball’s master builder," wrote Andrew Beaton of The Wall Street Journal, noting his distinction of being the only coach in NCAA history to take four different teams to the Sweet 16.

Rick Barnes led Texas to the Sweet 16 five times in his 17 years, but none since 2008. 

At 62 years old, Kruger might be past the point of wanting to continue to hop around—his longest tenure at one school was seven seasons at UNLV before he went to Oklahoma in 2011—and would likely look at Texas as a final stop on his storied coaching journey.

Current school: Gonzaga (16 years)

Record at school: 438-102

Career record: 438-102

Mark Few has been on Gonzaga's staff since 1989, first as a graduate assistant and then an assistant under Dan Fitzgerald and then Dan Monson. When Monson jumped to Minnesota in 1999, fresh off the school's first Elite Eight appearance, Few took over and has been in charge ever since.

Now he has the Bulldogs back in the Elite Eight and facing Duke in Sunday's South Region final. It's the culmination of a long journey that he's led Gonzaga on from being a Cinderella darling to a bona fide national power, despite playing in the lower-tier West Coast Conference.

Over the years, Few has had his name mentioned for nearly every major opening in the country, yet he's been content to stay put in Spokane, Washington. Now that he's had his best season yet, might he finally look to make a move elsewhere?

In many ways, what Few has done with Gonzaga is similar to what Chris Petersen did with Boise State's football program. Taking over a fast-rising team after other coaches quickly jumped to bigger jobs, Petersen stuck it out for a long time before finally making a move himself to Washington for the 2014 season.

Current school: Utah (Four years)

Record at school: 68-64

Career record: 110-84

Fresh off his first Sweet 16 appearance with Utah, Larry Krystkowiak needed only four seasons to turn around a Utes program that was muddled in nearly a decadelong funk. He went from six wins in his first year to 26 in 2014-15.

A former NBA forward in the 1980s and 1990s, Krystkowiak has also worked in the pros as both a head coach and an assistant. He's had more success at the college level, though, and at Utah he's managed to do big things without having access to the top recruits.

By putting that formula into a school like Texas, which has the kind of tradition that gets a recruiter in the door almost anywhere, Krystkowiak could quickly get the Longhorns back into the second weekend of the NCAA tournament and beyond.

"Krystkowiak has the type of varied resume, with professional experience, (athletic director Steve) Patterson values," wrote Chris Hummer of 247Sports.

Current school: Dayton (Four years)

Record at school: 90-47

Career record: 90-47

If Texas wants someone young, fresh and on the fast track to a bigger job, there's no one better than 36-year-old Archie Miller.

The younger brother of Arizona coach Sean Miller (46), Archie has been masterful in his first coaching gig with Dayton. He's taken what he learned working under his brother (as well as Ohio State's Thad Matta and former Arizona State and North Carolina State coach Herb Sendek) and combined it with his own fierce intensity to guide the Flyers to one of their best two-year stretches in program history.

He made a surprise run to the Elite Eight last year, but this past season was by far his best coaching job.

After two key players were implicated in an on-campus theft investigation in December, Miller booted them off the team, which left the Flyers with only six scholarship players and none taller than 6'6". Despite that, Dayton tied for second in the Atlantic 10, reached the A-10 conference title game and then won two games in the NCAA tournament before falling to Oklahoma last weekend.

Miller just signed an extension with Dayton that would keep him there through 2022, but a school like Texas has the resources to pay whatever buyout comes with that new contract if it wants him badly enough.

Current school: VCU (Six years)

Record at school: 163-56

Career record: 163-56

Before there was Archie Miller, there was Shaka Smart. He hasn't gone anywhere, though, and in fact he's probably just enhanced his image even more by staying with VCU instead of taking the first offer that came along after he led the Rams to the Final Four in his second season in 2011.

Since then Smart has taken VCU back to the NCAA tournament every season, though he hasn't made it out of the first weekend in the last four years. In the past two seasons, his teams have been upset in their opening games, both in overtime.

The 37-year-old Smart has created a brand-name style at VCU, known as havoc, which emphasizes pressure defense and puts a premium on forcing turnovers. It's an approach that's meant to help negate any talent or size advantage an opponent has, something VCU has had to deal with while trying to become more of a player on the recruiting trail.

Put havoc at Texas, where a higher tier of players would operate it, and it could be an even more successful version of the pressing attacks that Arkansas and West Virginia used this season.

Current school: Virginia Tech (One year)

Record at school: 11-22

Career record: 164-108

It caught everyone off guard when Buzz Williams left what seemed like a really good thing at Marquette to take on a major rebuilding project at Virginia Tech last spring. It would be far less surprising to see Williams skip out on that venture after just one season if it meant returning to his home state of Texas.

Williams grew up in Van Alstyne, which is northeast of Dallas, and his first two coaching gigs were as assistants at Texas-Arlington and Texas A&M-Kingsville. He was also on Billy Gillispie's staff at Texas A&M.

At Marquette, Williams replaced Tom Crean in 2008 and got the Golden Eagles into the NCAA tournament in each of his first five seasons, with an Elite Eight berth in 2013. His final Marquette team didn't make the NCAA field, and with the school going through a change in athletic directors, Williams opted to go elsewhere.

Virginia Tech, an ACC bottom-feeder, wasn't high on the list of schools that seemed likely to draw him away, though.

His reasons for taking the Hokies job probably also won't prevent him from leaving so quickly, since he's previously done that. Williams was head coach at New Orleans in 2006-07 before going to Marquette to be an assistant with Crean.

Current school: Wichita State (Eight years)

Record at school: 204-76

Career record: 398-159

Gregg Marshall is on the top of every school's coaching wish list, something he's come to accept based on the success he's had at Wichita State the last few seasons. But unlike others who have tried to shy away from the rumors or flat out deny them, Marshall addressed the situation head on last week when reports surfaced that Alabama was prepared to back up an armored truck to his home to lure him to Tuscaloosa.

"It's going to take some type of crazy offer to get us to leave Wichita State," Marshall said on CBS Sports Radio's Jim Rome Show.

Chances are that Texas' pile of money would be just as big, if not more so, if athletic director Steve Patterson wants Marshall. And there's no reason he wouldn't, since Marshall is as close to a basketball version of Charlie Strong—the Longhorns football coach whom Patterson hired not long after coming to Texas in late 2013—as anyone else in the game.

Marshall has 95 victories the past three seasons, including a trip to the Final Four and an unbeaten regular season as well as a Sweet 16 this year. At his previous stop, small-school Winthrop, Marshall got the Eagles into the NCAA tournament out of the Big South seven times in nine years.

Follow Brian J. Pedersen on Twitter at @realBJP.