If you wish to bury males’s faculty basketball information, the primary day of the NCAA event is a reasonably good day to do it.
So when the SMU Mustangs fired coach Rob Lanier after simply two seasons — contemporary off a 20-win marketing campaign — the transfer could have raised some eyebrows within the business, however it was shortly overwhelmed by 16 video games of insanity.
Inside three weeks, nonetheless, it was clear that one transfer made an unquestionably larger affect than something that occurred on the courtroom that day.
SMU, a college that hasn’t made a Candy 16 since man first walked on the moon, set off a seismic shift felt at each stage of the game.
Emboldened by their pending transfer to the ACC — introduced a 12 months earlier — the Mustangs aimed excessive for Lanier’s substitute, and landed the USC Trojans’ Andy Enfield. The Trojans in flip employed Eric Musselman, who had taken the Arkansas Razorbacks to consecutive Elite Eights in 2021 and 2022.
All this arrange the largest transfer of all of them: The Razorbacks, and their rich boosters, satisfied John Calipari to go away the Kentucky Wildcats after 15 years, one nationwide championship and 5 Closing Fours (though none since 2015).
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“As issues unfolded and folks began to level to SMU as beginning that exact carousel, it was fascinating,” SMU athletic director Rick Hart stated. “It is not like I relish it. But it surely was fascinating to see the ripple results our rent had throughout the faculty basketball panorama.”
“As a fan, it is fascinating,” Enfield added. “To get Calipari out of Kentucky after 15 years? It is fascinating.”
That is the story of how convention realignment, massive donor cash and one mega March Insanity upset modified the face of males’s faculty basketball over three weeks this spring.
SMU: The place it began
SMU’s transfer to the ACC was essentially the most innocuous of the key realignment adjustments that turned official this summer season: Texas and Oklahoma’s transfer from the Huge 12 to the SEC; the collapse of the Pac-12; the Huge Ten’s additions of USC, UCLA, Oregon and Washington; the Huge 12 getting Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah; Stanford and Cal becoming a member of the Mustangs in going to the ACC. Comparatively, SMU — the one non-Energy 5 program to leap up a stage — did not fairly stand out.
We’re all for the ACC glow-up ✌️ https://t.co/LCKXY3uLs4
— SMU (@SMU) August 13, 2024
With its assets, amenities and placement, the varsity has the infrastructure of a big-time athletics program — however it was nonetheless recovering from the consequences of the “dying penalty” given to the soccer program by the NCAA in 1987, and had been one thing of a nomad for the reason that Southwest Convention dissolved in 1996. The Mustangs joined the WAC for eight years, then Convention USA for seven years and had been a part of the American Athletic Convention for the previous decade. However they had been in search of a long-term house.
On the floor, a wedding between SMU and the ACC appeared because the league’s secondary quick-pivot response to the opposite energy conferences increasing and the Pac-12’s ensuing demise.
Hart initiated the dialog with ACC commissioner Jim Phillips, laying out why the Mustangs had been a great match for the league regardless of being outdoors its conventional East Coast footprint. On the time, the convention was additionally in talks with Cal and Stanford, which might develop its territory to the Bay Space. Including the Dallas market was not a non-starter.
“They’ve had prior success in all sports activities,” Phillips stated. “It is not a program the place you are questioning if they might compete at a excessive stage. They’ve finished that. Then you definitely actually begin to dig in about property and assets. The recruiting base is great. The footprint in Dallas, Fort Price. … Generally, you simply want an opportunity. That is what I acquired from them.”
It did not take lengthy for the college to show its monetary value to the ACC: SMU raised $100 million in a single week after saying its transfer to the convention in September 2023.
“You’ll be able to’t replicate that stage of enthusiasm and funding,” Hart stated. “It is nonetheless onerous to imagine. This complete factor has been stuffed with pinch-myself moments.”
The ACC welcomes Cal, SMU and Stanford to the league in 2024!
Learn extra: https://t.co/9vhMMdDCq1 pic.twitter.com/N2ugGLAert
— The ACC (@theACC) September 1, 2023
The varsity lastly had some momentum. Final season, SMU soccer went unbeaten in AAC play and received the league championship sport in opposition to a ranked Tulane crew. Total, the Mustangs had a program-record eight convention championship groups.
Rob Lanier’s males’s basketball program wasn’t far off the tempo. After pummeling Memphis 106-79 on Feb. 18, the Mustangs had been 19-7 total and 10-3 within the AAC, simply two video games again of first-place South Florida.
However they’d win only one sport the remainder of the season, ending 20-11. It was a 10-win enchancment on Lanier’s first season on the helm, however lower than 24 hours after an NIT loss to Indiana State, he was fired on the primary day of the 2024 NCAA event.
In his official assertion concerning the firing, Hart cited the varsity’s funding in basketball, its NIL alternatives and its transfer to the ACC. He did not cover why he thought this system ought to be competing with the perfect.
“Choices like which might be fairly nuanced. Under no circumstances ought to that be considered as an indictment on [Lanier’s] means to teach at that stage. However we misplaced a variety of momentum,” Hart instructed ESPN in July. “Late into the season, there was a variety of enthusiasm about making that transition [to the ACC] with that workers. However once you lose momentum and you are going right into a second like this — it is a consider that approach. You do not wish to go in there and stumble your approach in. We really feel we have to cost into the ACC with some momentum and vitality in the neighborhood.”
A number of high-profile names — Eric Musselman, Will Wade, Steve Lutz, Chris Jans — started buzzing by way of the rumor mill within the hours after the job opened.
However Hart had one goal on the high of his listing: USC’s Andy Enfield.
“We had been solely going to [fire Lanier] if we felt we may go get somebody with the pedigree, the confirmed observe file of success like Andy,” Hart stated. “He is finished it, he is finished it persistently. At a college like SMU. At a stage just like the ACC. It is not something you need to challenge. … There isn’t any motive to imagine he will not do it right here.”
It wasn’t going to be simple pulling Enfield out of Los Angeles, although. He had constructed the Trojans’ program into one of the constant within the Pac-12. USC struggled by way of an injury-riddled marketing campaign in 2023-24 however had received 95 video games the earlier 4 years and even made it to the Elite Eight in 2021. Enfield signed a number of five-star recruits alongside the way in which, together with the No. 1 prospect within the 2023 class, Isaiah Collier. And in 2022 he had agreed to a contract extension by way of the 2027-28 season.
Would Enfield actually depart the Huge Ten-bound Trojans for SMU?
1:04
The stats behind SMU hiring Andy Enfield
Check out some key numbers behind SMU hiring former USC males’s basketball coach Andy Enfield.
Hart flew out to Los Angeles to make his pitch to Enfield and his spouse, Amanda. Earlier than assembly with them, SMU brass wasn’t certain it may get Enfield. After dinner at Enfield’s house? “It felt actual,” Hart stated.
The deal would take a number of days to finalize, however Enfield was on board.
“There was a uniqueness concerning the scenario going to the ACC, the chance to assist lead a crew into an influence convention,” Enfield stated. “You might simply really feel the joy and fervour and assist.”
Enfield has additionally stated he would not have made the transfer if the Mustangs had been nonetheless within the AAC.
“I used to be not going to go away a program we had simply constructed, to go away the ability stage and go to a different stage,” he stated. “We noticed it as a possibility to be the primary teaching workers — and recruit the primary gamers — to enter the ACC within the historical past of the varsity.”
“It was an exclamation level on our transfer to the ACC,” Hart added. “A tangible, seen second that stated, issues are completely different now. SMU goes to have the ability to function at a distinct stage and compete with anyone within the nation.”
USC: The job that introduced Musselman house
Eric Musselman had continuously been linked to different jobs since he led Arkansas to a pair of Elite Eights and a Candy 16.
USC was completely different. The Trojans job supplied an opportunity for Musselman and his household to return to the West Coast — he’d grown up in San Diego, and his spouse, Danyelle, labored for a number of years in Los Angeles as a sports activities reporter and anchor.
When phrase acquired out about Enfield going to SMU, Musselman’s curiosity was piqued.
“It was undoubtedly a job that I needed after which it was undoubtedly a job that our household needed,” he stated. “That is one which aligned with all of us.”
His curiosity additionally did not come as a shock to Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek.
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“I knew Eric would have an curiosity in that,” Yurachek stated. “He had been very clear with me about his need to get again to a West Coast college if he ever had that chance.”
USC athletic director Jennifer Cohen did conduct a search, talking to a number of candidates both straight or by way of intermediaries. However Musselman shortly turned the highest goal.
The 2 sides spoke by way of Zoom — with Danyelle becoming a member of the decision — after which Cohen flew out to Fayetteville to shut the deal the Thursday earlier than the Closing 4.
“The extra analysis that we as a household did, primarily on Jen, was so optimistic,” Musselman stated. “I reached out to all types of individuals in several sports activities and simply acquired unbelievable suggestions. Her imaginative and prescient aligned with our imaginative and prescient. … Rising up in San Diego, the USC model is so sturdy. I knew the educational piece, after which [we’re] within the L.A. market.”
It took simply three days, however the Musselmans determined they had been going house to Southern California.
Arkansas: Luring away a legend
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John Calipari agrees to five-year cope with Arkansas
John Calipari is finalizing a five-year deal to go away Kentucky and turn into the following males’s basketball coach at Arkansas.
On the Sunday evening earlier than the nationwide championship sport, the information broke: John Calipari was finalizing a deal to turn into the following coach at Arkansas.
After a decade and a half at Kentucky, full with a nationwide championship, 4 Closing 4 appearances and numerous No. 1 recruiting courses, the largest identify in faculty basketball was leaving the largest job in faculty basketball.
Calipari wasn’t on the radar for the Razorbacks … at first. John Tyson, the chairman of Tyson Meals and a billionaire Arkansas booster who has identified Calipari since his days at Memphis, linked him with Yurachek, who occurred to be in Phoenix for conferences through the Closing 4.
Yurachek and Calipari briefly spoke on the cellphone that Thursday, and agreed to satisfy the following day. Throughout that assembly, Yurachek requested Calipari about plenty of candidates — after which requested Calipari whether or not he would have an interest.
“Speaking to him within the lodge room, he nonetheless had an amazing ardour to teach basketball,” Yurachek stated. “I may sense his ardour to have a contemporary begin elsewhere.”
Calipari had felt the strain from the Kentucky fan base after the Wildcats’ first-round upset loss to Oakland two weeks earlier. Kentucky hadn’t superior previous the primary weekend of the NCAA event since 2019 — shedding to Saint Peter’s within the first spherical in 2022 and Kansas State within the spherical of 32 in 2023. It hadn’t seen the Closing 4 since 2015, regardless of persistently attracting high expertise 12 months after 12 months. However leaving the largest job in faculty basketball and a lifetime contract? And for a convention rival?
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Farnham: Calipari’s ‘contemporary begin’ advantages each Arkansas and Kentucky
Sean Farnham reacts to the information of John Calipari leaving Kentucky to turn into the top coach at Arkansas.
Calipari agreed to take a while to consider it. And Yurachek left the assembly considering he had a shot.
“I may sense he had a honest curiosity on the finish of that assembly,” Yurachek stated. “He does not do many issues for 2 and a half hours. I went over my philosophy, the fan base, amenities, budgets, even what a possible bundle may appear to be for him. I believed I had an opportunity. I did not understand how good an opportunity, truthfully. However he was my goal.”
Kelvin Sampson, who labored with Yurachek at Houston from 2015 to 2017, referred to as his former boss. Calipari had referred to as Sampson.
“I do not know what you stated to him,” Yurachek stated Sampson instructed him. “However I believe you have actually acquired a shot at luring him to Arkansas.”
Because the Razorbacks waited for Calipari to make a closing resolution, reviews concerning the search ran rampant. Chris Beard was the rumored favourite; he returned to Ole Miss. Kansas State’s Jerome Tang was briefly talked about as a candidate. On the Sunday evening Calipari finally took the job, Mississippi State’s Chris Jans started circulating as a chance.
Calipari, in the meantime, mulled the supply over the weekend. At his introductory information convention per week later, he instructed a narrative about how he finally landed on leaving for Fayetteville. He’d spoken with a priest whereas in Phoenix concerning the resolution he needed to make.
0:55
Calipari launched at Arkansas, jokes about constructing roster from scratch
John Calipari speaks to the Razorback devoted after being launched as the brand new head coach of the Arkansas males’s basketball crew.
“He instructed me, ‘Go for an hour stroll. Have in your thoughts, you are the Arkansas coach. After which on the way in which again, that you are the Kentucky coach. You will see what strikes your coronary heart and what you wish to do,'” Calipari stated. “And I did that. And I will be trustworthy. After I considered coming right here and constructing this program and making it one thing particular, it acquired me excited.”
No person noticed it coming.
The information wasn’t alleged to be introduced till after the nationwide championship sport, so the Sunday evening information break — at the start was signed — involved Yurachek. However he obtained a signed contract because the title sport tipped Monday evening.
“There’s an air of pleasure round our state like I have not seen in a number of years,” Yurachek instructed ESPN. “This hiring has actually reinvigorated our fan base. … They carry their heads up excessive and chests out as a result of somebody of the caliber of Coach Cal has come to the College of Arkansas and to our state. It is neat and touching to see how proud it is made individuals from this state.”
And now, arguably the largest job within the sport was on the clock.
Kentucky: From participant to champion to teach
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The numbers behind Mark Pope’s match with Kentucky
Try the important thing numbers and storylines behind Kentucky’s pursuit of BYU coach Mark Pope.
Mark Pope occurred to be with Calipari whereas his predecessor was pondering his future. On the Saturday morning of Closing 4 weekend, Pope — who performed at Kentucky from 1994 to ’96 and received a nationwide championship — was with Calipari and Tubby Smith at a lodge. He even took an image to commemorate the event.
“I am going to cherish that image endlessly,” Pope stated.
“Thirty-two hours later, information breaks that Cal is leaving.”
As anticipated, Kentucky took some massive swings early in its search. Former Villanova coach Jay Wright publicly denied curiosity, whereas Chicago Bulls coach Billy Donovan distanced himself from the job. Alabama’s Nate Oats launched an announcement saying he was staying in Tuscaloosa, whereas UConn’s Dan Hurley declined curiosity earlier than the job even opened after which once more when Kentucky reached out. Shaka Good stated he was snug at Marquette and never seeking to transfer.
Baylor’s Scott Drew was the primary true candidate. Drew had listened to Louisville’s supply throughout its search in March, however Kentucky’s pursuit was extra critical. It was additionally extra life like: Drew has a detailed relationship with Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart from their time within the 2021 NCAA event bubble.
KWTX, a central Texas tv station, filmed members of Drew’s household getting off a non-public aircraft with ties to a Kentucky donor that flew again from Lexington on Wednesday, April 10. The momentum appeared headed within the route of Drew.
“Like everybody else on the planet, for 48 hours, we had been certain that Scott was taking the job,” Pope stated. “That Wednesday evening, it was simply me and my youngest daughter. We had been speaking, possibly this Kentucky factor goes to roll round. That evening, we had been like, yep it is lifeless.”
Then got here Thursday morning, when Drew launched an announcement turning down Kentucky and returning to Waco.
“I acquired a textual content,” Pope stated. “Oh, this isn’t lifeless. I used to be figuring out certainly one of my gamers. At 8:07 a.m., my cellphone was ringing. Then it was on.”
Pope had truly been in touch with Kentucky, not directly, for the reason that Monday morning after the Calipari information broke. There was some mild contact by way of intermediaries all through the week, however it ramped up dramatically after Drew stated no.
Hours after Drew made his assertion, Pope can be supplied the head-coaching job at his alma mater.
Whereas Pope had simply guided the BYU Cougars to a 6-seed within the NCAA event and was returning a roster that will probably be ranked within the preseason Prime 25, there wasn’t a lot hesitation to say sure.
“It is the perfect job in all of school basketball,” he stated. “I do not know if that is simply me or that is the entire world, however it’s acquired the best custom, fan base, expectations, strain, visibility. It is unbelievable that we get to do that.”
The true affect of this one slice of the 2024 teaching carousel will not be identified for years.
“After I take into consideration the ripple impact, there are actually dozens of issues which have occurred over the previous few years that we level our fingers at, essentially the most distinctive, odd coincidences,” Pope stated. “It is beautiful when you will have an opportunity to look again in any respect the little items. In simply our circumstance, there are a thousand issues that needed to go precisely proper at precisely the proper time.”
Kevin Younger changed Pope at BYU. However he was within the combine for the Brooklyn Nets emptiness; what if he did not make the soar again to varsity?
The Cougars have since dramatically elevated their NIL operation and are arguably the front-runners for A.J. Dybantsa, the No. 1 prospect in highschool basketball who simply transferred to Utah Prep for his closing 12 months of highschool. A 12 months from now, there may very well be a world through which we’re speaking about how Scott Drew turning down Kentucky resulted in BYU getting a possible No. 1 NBA draft decide.
After which there’s Rob Lanier, who was unceremoniously let go by SMU on the primary Thursday of the event. Even he landed on his toes as the top coach of Rice, simply days later. If he turns the Owls round, we may very well be rehashing this whole storyline not too far down the road.
In a sport the place participant motion and coach motion are so interconnected, the chain response of 1 resolution is unending.
“That is faculty athletics in 2024,” Phillips stated with amusing. “And I do not suppose that is going to vary a lot as we go into the longer term.”
