From The Couch – K-State Hires Belmont Coach Casey Alexander To Lead The Men’s Basketball Program
Be honest. When you heard the news of this hiring, did you say, “Who?” I will be honest. It took me a quick Google search to find out who Casey Alexander is. Sure, the name sounded familiar, but I couldn’t place where he was from. For the past eight seasons, he has been the head coach at Belmont University, where he has won three conference championships: two in the Ohio Valley and one in the Missouri Valley. His only postseason appearance at Belmont was a trip to the NIT in 2022, when Belmont lost in the first round.
Last weekend, when I saw that Northern Iowa won the Missouri Valley tournament, I glanced at the bracket and saw that Belmont was the one seed and lost in their first game, and I remember thinking, “Belmont hasn’t been in the NCAA tournament in a while.” Little did I know that less than a week later, Gene Taylor would hire their head coach at K-State. In fairness to Alexander and Belmont, they upgraded conferences to the Missouri Valley in 2023 and finished 3rd, 4th, 4th, and then first this season.
JM: At least our new coach doesn’t wear a wig.
JM: I chuckled when I saw this. It’s like they’re saying, “Trust us, we hired someone really good. Read the fine print and find out why.” 🙂
Rumors are that K-State reached out to their number one choice, Saint Louis head coach Josh Schertz, and he turned them down. Then they reached out to their number two choice, Utah State head coach Jerrod Calhoun, and salary negotiations went sour. So here we are.
JM: Alexander made the NCAA tournament with Lipscomb in 2019, losing to the two-seed North Carolina in the first round. Since 2017, Alexander’s teams have never won fewer than 20 games in a season. Unfortunately, he hasn’t had much postseason success in that time period.
JM: I’ll save you the click. Alexander signed a five-year contract for 17 million dollars.
JM: I’ll have more to say on Monday after the introductory press conference. On the surface, this looks like an okay hire. Alexander wins the majority of his games, but hasn’t found postseason successes. That’s about all I’ve got right now. His success at K-State will be determined by how he navigates NIL and the transfer portal. It doesn’t take much to get into the NCAA tournament in the Big 12. Go .500 in conference, and you’ll be on the bubble. Jerome Tang couldn’t do it, but maybe this guy can.
