Do "In the Family" Coaching Hires Outperform External Hires in NCAA Division I Men's Basketball

When conducting searches to fill head coaching positions, many college athletics directors frequently look to candidates who have a connection to the university; former players, assistant coaches, or students. Hiring someone from a university’s “family” is often a popular decision among stakeholders, but utilizing such parameters in a search severely restricts candidate pools. More importantly, little empirical evidence suggesting such hires perform better. The purpose of the current study was to examine whether NCAA Division I men’s basketball coaches who are “In the Family” hires perform better than “External” hires in measures of (a) team success and (b) recruiting. The current study examined ten years of data (3,478 observations and 492 coaching changes) for 370 NCAA Division I men’s basketball programs and utilized fixed effects modelling, controlling for a number of variables such as previous coach performance, conference affiliation, and post-season appearances. Results were also lagged for multiple years to account for the time it may take a coach to influence team success and demonstrate recruiting prowess. Results indicated no significant differences in games won between “In the Family” hires and “External” hires, while “In the Family” hires performed slightly worse in recruiting ranking metrics.