College basketball not only has a compelling tournament this time of year, lovingly called March Madness, but also has the annual melodrama which is the carousel of coaches moving in and out of programs due to firings and opportunistic hirings. The most intriguing coaching story playing out for us this week is Shaka Smart, head coach of VCU, who is the new darling of media and fans who are anxiously seeking a new coach for their team.
Let’s take a moment to break down the "Shaka story" and look at the facts.
- Smart’s VCU team barely made the tournament and had to play a “play in” game against USC in order to advance into the 64-team field.
- VCU’s inclusion drew public ire from none other than basketball analysts Jay Bilas and Dick Vitale, both of whom blasted the Selection Committee for this decision.
- VCU’s run in the tournament included wins over Georgetown and Purdue, then an overtime win over Florida State in the Sweet 16. That set up a game against perennial power—and one seed--Kansas for the right to advance to the Final Four. And, of course, we all know what happened next.
Smart has suddenly moved, in the space of two weeks, from coach of a team barely in the tournament to the coach everyone seems to want if they have a vacant head coaching job. He, over the course of five games, has moved from a weirdly-named coach of a mid-major to a guy who is about to hit it rich, whether he stays at his current school or, more likely, moves on to a more lucrative compensation package at a major institution (e.g., Missouri, Oklahoma, North Carolina State.)
The question hasn’t been asked but needs to be asked—is Smart truly worth it? Smart has coached two years—two years—at VCU and has compiled a 55-20 record. Sure, that’s not bad but he’s finished fifth in his league and fourth this year. He lost to teams named Northeastern, Drexel and Georgia State, along with Richmond, Old Dominion and George Mason.
Smart is young, charismatic and a story—the type of story which plays well with the desire of everyone who roots for the underdog to upset the big dog. My question is whether that translates into running a major program where the scrutiny intensifies and the recruiting expectations are heightened. And, what did Smart do, or not do, which suddenly got his team winning in the tournament versus what happened during the course of the regular season?
I’m not begrudging Smart his success but I am questioning the logic of a major institution which will likely court him, once his tournament run is over, and offer far more than the $325,000 per year he makes at VCU. I have a hunch that we’ll see a school, hungry for success and bedazzled by VCU’s run, make Smart a wealthy man. Whether he can then turn that program into a consistent winner, much less be the next Roy Williams or Bill Self, remains to be seen.
If I'm Joe Castiglione at Oklahoma or Mike Alden at Missouri, I'd think long and hard before making a run at Smart. And, it might be a good idea for them to call their counterpart at Georgia Tech, Dan Radakovich, who recently fired Paul Hewitt and hired Brian Gregory, former coach at Dayton. Hewitt was hired at Tech in 2000 after leading Siena to that school's first NCAA appearance. Hewitt had been Siena's coach for three years before going to Atlanta and eventually leading Tech to a Final Four in 2004. After that, the Yellow Jackets went 113-106.
I'm not saying that Hewitt's situation is directly analagous to Smart's but it is an example of a guy who got hot, took a small school a long way, and then reaped the benefits from a BCS conference institution. If I'm a betting man, we'll see Smart's name mentioned, this time next week, for one of those open jobs and he'll soon be long gone from VCU.
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