Marquette hooks Smart as coach
Shaka Smart is leaving Texas to coach Marquette. The Big East school announced the hiring Friday. It comes a week after Marquette fired Steve Wojciechowski and Smart’s Texas team was upset 53-52 by Abilene Christian in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
“Throughout the search, one individual continued to rise to the top, and that was Shaka,” athletic director Bill Scholl said in a statement. “I am beyond excited for our current and future student-athletes who will have the great fortune of being mentored by Shaka. He is a great teacher of the game, while also being a great molder of young men.”
Smart, who turns 44 on April 8, will be formally introduced at a news conference Monday. His decision to head north ends a six-season tenure at Texas that fell short of the lofty expectations that accompanied his arrival.
Smart went 109-86 with no NCAA Tournament victories at Texas after a remarkably successful six-year run at VCU, where he went 163-56 and led the Rams to a Final Four appearance in 2011. Texas went 19-8 this season and won the Big 12 Tournament before its early NCAA exit.
“I am extremely excited to get to Milwaukee to begin building relationships and getting to work on the court!” Smart said in a statement.
This marks a bit of a homecoming for Smart, who went to high school at Oregon, Wisconsin, just outside Madison. His arrival should provide a burst of energy for a Marquette program that went 128-95 overall and 59-68 in Big East competition during Wojciechowski’s seven seasons.
Marquette went 13-14 this season for its first losing season since Wojciechowski’s debut year of 2014-15.
“Shaka will be the first person of color to lead our program and is a true role model for our student-athletes,” Marquette president Michael R. Lovell said in a statement.
Smart had two seasons left on a Texas deal paying him more than $3 million per year.
oregon st. coach looks to his daughter
Oregon State coach Wayne Tinkle has never been to this point in the NCAA Tournament, not as a player for Montana in the 1980s or as an assistant and head coach of the Grizzlies in the 2000s.
He hasn’t had to look far for some Sweet 16 advice, though: His daughter, Joslyn, went to three of them with Stanford.
The two of them talk regularly, and dad recently was on Joslyn’s podcast, called “Talkin’ Beavers” to discuss the remarkable run by his 12th-seeded team. The Beavers will face eighth-seeded Loyola on Saturday.
“She just said, ‘Your guys looked so relaxed and confident. Keep them that way,’ ” Wayne Tinkle said. “Obviously, that’s a big reason they’re playing the way they are. Their minds are freed up, and they’re just out there hooping.”
Tinkle’s family knows a thing or two about hooping. Dad spent a dozen years playing professionally all around the world. His son, Tres, played for him at Oregon State and is now in the G League. Joslyn was a McDonald’s All-American who led Stanford to 137 wins over four seasons, then played for the Seattle Storm in the WNBA and several clubs abroad. Their sister, Elle, played her college ball at Gonzaga.
Fourth Gator bids program adieu
Florida coach Mike White likely will be an active shopper in the burgeoning transfer portal. Forward Osayi Osifo announced plans to play elsewhere, becoming the fourth player in three days to leave White’s program.
The Gators also lost top assistant Jordan Mincy, who took the coaching job at nearby
Jacksonville University.
Point guard and leading scorer Tre Mann entered the NBA Draft. Guards Noah Locke and Quin Glover entered the transfer portal, further depleting the team’s backcourt. And Osifo, a developmental project whose hustle earned him double-digit minutes in each of the team’s last four games, followed them out the door.
The 6-7 Osifo has two years of college eligibility remaining and is “looking for a new home to finish my college story,” he wrote on his Twitter page.