As coach Joe McKeown’s final season comes to a close after 18 years at the helm, Northwestern needs to consider what factors will help contribute to its success in a rapidly changing college basketball landscape. 

Although McKeown is the winningest coach in the team’s history, this season marks the fourth season in a row his Wildcats will finish with a losing record.

McKeown led NU to two NCAA Tournament appearances in 2015 and 2021. His most successful season was in 2020, when the ’Cats finished as regular-season Big Ten champions, before the NCAA tournament was canceled due to COVID-19.

While he announced his retirement in March, a new coach has yet to be announced. 

Debbie Antonelli, a college basketball analyst for ESPN, Big Ten Network and CBS and a former player at North Carolina State University, said NU should consider how revenue-sharing has impacted the college game in its coaching search.

In 2025, the NCAA started implementing a revenue-sharing model that allocates money to schools based on how far they advance in the tournament, similar to the structure that the men’s NCAA Tournament already had in place.

Today, there are search firms involved in the hiring of college basketball coaches because of the increase in money being poured into the game, Antonelli said.

“The best candidate will equal what kind of resources Northwestern wants to put into it,” Antonelli said.

Nancy Lieberman, a former professional basketball player and professional coach, echoed a similar sentiment about the growing business aspect of women’s basketball and the necessity of coaches to put their team in a position to sell.

Before NIL deals and the new revenue-sharing model, coaches just had to know how to be a good coach. Now, they have to be comfortable making business decisions, Antonelli said. 

“Nobody’s getting hired in men or women’s sports right now without the ability to fundraise,” Lieberman said.

With an increased focus on money, academics are falling on the list of priorities for players when selecting schools, Antonelli said.

She explained that players are now “losing the value of the scholarship,” which has previously been an attractive component for a high-tuition school like NU, instead looking to where the money is. 

The difference between male and female coaches is also a vital consideration in selecting a coach, according to Nicole LaVoi, a researcher who studies girls and women in sports and publishes the annual Women in College Coaching Report Card. She said unconscious gender bias can creep into the hiring process.

In the 2024-25 report card, LaVoi gave Northwestern a “B” in terms of the percentage of women head coaches across all sports. She said that this is largely due to a lack of turnover in NU’s coaching staff. 

She said that female coaches on women’s teams can be beneficial in order to provide a role model for young female athletes, which is important for self-confidence.

“Women should have the opportunity to have the same identity role model, someone that has experiences, life experiences, that are similar to themselves,” LaVoi said.

NU is one of just three schools in the Big Ten with a male women’s basketball coach.

Lieberman agreed that sometimes a female coach might better understand challenges women face, but she doesn’t want to put people in a box, especially as someone who has coached both men’s and women’s teams. 

Lieberman made history in 2009, becoming the first female to ever coach a professional men’s basketball team for the then-NBA Development League’s Texas Legends. 

“Hopefully, they’ll find a female who checks all the boxes, but it’s not a girls’ club,” she said. “I mean, this is a business.”

Despite the quality of education being less of a priority, Northwestern still has unique factors that can make it an attractive school for top recruits and attract coaches. 

“Northwestern is a brand, it’s a big name, it’s an opportunity and a great city that has incredible high school girls’ basketball,” Antonelli said. “Just in the city alone, let alone the footprint of the Big Ten.” 


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