Providence College has found its 17th head men’s basketball coach, hiring USF head coach Bryan Hodgson to get the program back on track after going 48-52 over three seasons under Kim English. English’s teams never cracked the upper half of the Big East standings finishing 7th, 8th and 9th despite being just outside the bubble in English’s first season on the strength of future lottery pick Devin Carter. Hodgson will be introduced at a press conference on campus at Alumni Hall in Mullaney Gym on Tuesday, March 24th at 3pm ET.
Hodgson arrives in Friartown fresh off the best season in USF program history — a 25 win campaign that produced an American Athletic Conference regular season title, an AAC Tournament championship and an NCAA Tournament appearance — just the 4th in school history and 2nd since joining the AAC — as an 11-seed before falling to Louisville in the First Round on March 19th, 83-79. He was named Coach of the Year in the AAC. The hire ends a search that began in earnest when Providence fired Kim English on March 13, one day after the Friars were eliminated by St. John’s in the Big East Tournament quarterfinals. Hodgson’s contract with USF includes a $2M buyout that he/Providence will owe to USF.
English coached three seasons at Providence and finished 48-52 overall, 23-37 in Big East play. He never reached the NCAA Tournament. The program that Ed Cooley built into a consistent Big East contender and NCAA Tournament regular went backwards across all three years, and the conference record tells that story plainly, especially considering the league only got 3 teams into the NCAA Tournament in two of English’s three seasons. Hodgson is not inheriting a program in freefall, but he is inheriting one that lost ground in a league that has hall of fame level coaching in Dan Hurley and Rick Pitino.
Hodgson has three years of head coaching experience at the Division I level. After four seasons at Buffalo as an assistant to Nate Oats and then four seasons following Oats to Alabama, Hodgson took the head coaching job at Sun Belt school Arkansas State in March of 20223 where he won 20 games and 25 games reaching the CBI semifinals the first year and the second round of the NIT in his second and final year with the Red Wolves. That final season at Arkansas State Hodgson won the Sun Belt regular season title. Last March, Hodgson took the job at USF after also considering the opening at UNLV. The Bulls were coming off a season with an interim coach following the tragic death of former Friar Jabri Abdur-Rahim’s uncle, Amir Abdur-Rahim a couple weeks before the start of the 2023-24 season. Hodgon’s single season in Tampa resulted in a program tying 25 win season with just their second ever regular season American title (Abdur-Rahim is the only other coach to accomplish this at USF). Hodgson brought several players with him from Arkansas State and added a mix of high school and transfer portal players to form his roster. Hodgson has a reputation as an excellent recruiter, earning him the nickname “The Shark”. He has also shown a propensity for navigating the transfer portal and building rosters that fit the way he wants to play which is the more modern, analytically focused way of taking valuable shots with the highest expected point value: often 2 pointers at the rim and 3 pointers. Hodson’s teams have overachieved preseason Kenpom ratings all three seasons with his best season being the 2025-26 one at USF where they finished 16th in Adjusted Tempo, 63rd in Adjusted Offensive Efficiency, 40th in Adjusted Defensive Efficiency, 7th in Offensive Rebound %, 56th in Free Throw Rate and 26th in 2-Point Defense.
A native of Olean, NY, Hodgson was the son of a teen mother who was 15 at the time of his birth. Around the time he was 18 months old, the mother’s boyfriend — who was not Hodgson’s biological father and an apparent drug dealer — was taking care of a sick Hodgson while his mother was at high school. The boyfriend couldn’t handle the incessant crying of the sick child and placed him on a burning wood stove in just a diaper causing 3rd-degree burns which Hodgson says are still scars he carries to this day. Hodgson was placed into foster care right after that incident and the foster family, Rebecca and Larry Hodgson, adopted Bryan about 18 months after he entered their home. Rebecca Hodgson is also the product of foster care. The Hodgson’s were able to attend USF’s NCAA Tournament this week to watch Bryan coach his team in Buffalo near where he grew up. Larry Hodgson has dementia and has a hard time traveling, so this was his first chance to see Bryan in person as a head coach.
Hodgson is young in head coaching years, but athletic director Steve Napolillo was clearly prioritizing a coach who had already proven he could win a conference title, not simply one who had accumulated credentials elsewhere or had a rising star reputation. Hodgson also reportedly had interest in the Syracuse job, but Field of 68’s Jeff Goodman reported that Hodgson “turned down the Syracuse job” on March 17th. SearchSZN aficionado, Curry Hicks Sage — an internet burner account who has risen to online fame in the college coaching search world — has said on his live shows on X that his sources say Syracuse never formally offered Hodgson the job. It’s likely the truth is somewhere in the middle, but Hodgson is clearly one of the most coveted coaches of this slower than usual coaching carousel cycle.
Hodgson won at two programs without elite resources and has shown an ability to navigate the transfer portal and been adept at figuring out players’ market values well, something Napolillo mentioned as specific areas he wanted his next coach to be expert in during his media availability on March 16th. Providence is not a rebuild-from-scratch situation in terms of facilities, brand, or fan infrastructure and despite having to pay English’s buyout the NIL support, which was north of $10M this season, is expected to continue. The program has everything it needs to be successful and the hope is Hodgson is the coach to harness those resources to get Friartown back to winning again.
The immediate priorities are roster construction, staff assembly, and transfer portal engagement. The new 15-day window for portal entrance officially opens on April 7th. Hodgson will likely begin to have conversations with current Providence players very soon to get a sense for who is open to staying and also whether they fit Hodgson’s style and culture. So far, Stefan Vaaks and Daquan Davis have announced intentions to enter the transfer portal once it opens. Other Providence players with remaining eligibility are Jaylen Harrell (medical redshirt and will have 4 years left), Jamier Jones (3 years), Rich Barron (medical redshirt and will have 2 years left), Ryan Mela (2 years), Peteris Pinnins (3 years), Nilavan Daniels (2 years) and Oswin Erhunmwunse (2 years). 2026 commit Aidan Derkack got a release from Providence last week and English also had a commitment from a player from Germany who is no longer planning to attend Providence, per source.
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