Marquette lands former Texas, VCU coach Smart
Shaka Smart is leaving Texas to coach Marquette.
Marquette 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,” Marquette athletic director Bill Scholl said Friday 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 April 8, will be formally introduced Monday at a news conference. 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 Conference 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 contract paying him more than $3 million per year.
Texas hired him to replace Rick Barnes, who was fired after making the NCAA tournament 16 times in 17 seasons. Smart faced the immediate expectation he’d not just match that sort of consistency, but ignite the program with the sort of success he’d had in leading VCU to the Final Four.
The Longhorns haven’t been to the Final Four since 2003 and haven’t made it out of the second round of the tournament since 2008.
Instead, Smart’s years in the Big 12 proved to be a struggle despite recruiting some elite talent to campus. He finished below .500 in the Big 12 three times and had just three NCAA tournament appearances. Texas also likely would have earned an NCAA bid in 2020 if the pandemic hadn’t shut down the season.
This season was arguably Smart’s best at Texas.
The Longhorns were ranked as high as No. 4 in The Associated Press Top 25 and were ninth heading into the NCAA tournament. But their first-round loss as a No. 3 seed to No. 14-seeded Abilene Christian embarrassed Longhorns fans and re-ignited calls for him to go that had seemed to cool down.
Texas won the 2019 National Invitation Tournament.
Smart’s Texas teams didn’t lack for talent. First-round draft picks who played for Smart at Texas included Jarrett Allen, Mo Bamba and Jaxson Hayes. All left after one season.
This season, Texas had two players, Greg Brown and Kai Jones, who project as likely first-round picks. Jones already has declared he will turn pro. Brown has been expected to leave after his freshman season since arriving on campus.
Smart also had to lead his program an emotional time in January 2018 when one of his best players, Andrew Jones, was diagnosed with leukemia and didn’t play for the rest of that season or most of 2018-19. Jones eventually returned and led Texas in scoring this season as a senior.
His inability to win any NCAA tournament games at Texas is notable because a lack of postseason success was one of the biggest criticisms of Wojciechowski’s Marquette tenure. Marquette never won an NCAA tournament game and earned just two NCAA invitations in Wojciechowski’s seven seasons, though it was in position to earn a bid in 2020 before the season was halted.
Rice
Rice sophomore Lauren Schwartz scored 25 points, and classmate Katelyn Crosthwait finished with a career-high 20 points as the Owls built a big lead and held on late, topping Delaware, 85-75, in the first of two WNIT semifinals in Memphis, Tenn. Rice (22-4) will take Mississippi in the championship game, set for noon Sunday, also in Memphis. The game will be streamed live by FloHoops.
Mississippi
Mississippi women’s basketball rolled to a 60-50 win over Northern Iowa (17-13) in the other semifinal of the WNIT. Junior forward Shakira Austin led the way with 18 points and 8 rebounds for the Rebels (15-11). Mississippi had managed this WNIT run without head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin, who tested positive for COVID but returned Friday. This will be the first winning record for the program since 2016-17; in her third year, McPheeMcCuin has given the Rebels a sense of belief in the always-tough SEC and was recently given a four-year contract extension.
Oregon State
Coach Wayne Tinkle has never been to this point in the NCAA tournament before, not as a player for Montana in the 1980s, 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 was recently on Joslyn’s podcast called “Talkin’ Beavers” discuss the remarkable run by his No. 12 seed team. The Beavers are set to face eighth-seeded Loyola Chicago 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.”
Siena
Men’s coach Carmen Maciariello signed a three-year contract extension. A Siena graduate, Maciariello has led his alma mater to back-to-back Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference regular-season titles in his first two seasons. The Saints are 32-15 under Maciariello but failed to win their second straight conference tournament this year, losing in the MAAC quarterfinals to Rick Pitino’s Iona Gaels, the eventual champions. The extension runs through the 2025-26 season.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin hired Boston University’s Marisa Moseley as women’s coach as the Badgers attempt to rejuvenate a program that hasn’t produced a winning season in a decade. Moseley was 45-29 at Boston University after working as an assistant on Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma’s staff during five of the Huskies’ national championship seasons (2010, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016). She takes over for Jonathan Tsipis, who was fired after Wisconsin’s first-round loss in the Big Ten Tournament. Tsipis went 50-99 in five seasons, including a 16-74 mark in Big Ten competition.