Shaka Smart’s departure creates concerns at Texas Tech, Kentucky and Houston | Opinion
Rather than wait to be fired, Shaka Smart did the best thing and take a good job at a place where he can win.
Smart is expected to leave the University of Texas as its men’s basketball coach and take over at Marquette University, according to a report from Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports.
The move makes Texas athletic director Chris Del Conte the luckiest man in Austin.
Shaka is a good coach in the wrong conference. He can succeed at Marquette.
After following the Longhorns’ Big 12 Tournament championship win with a first-round NCAA Tournament loss as a 3-seed to tiny Abilene Christian, Shaka knew he was finished in Austin.
The first call Chris Del Conte will make is not to Texas Tech’s Chris Beard but rather to Kentucky’s John Calipari.
CDC leaned on Cal’ to find coaches before, and expect him to again to determine the best person for this job.
According to a pair of sources, the candidates are Beard, Houston’s Kelvin Sampson and Loyola Chicago’s Porter Moser.
With openings at Indiana, Oklahoma, Cincinnati and now Texas, plenty of good jobs are available, and opportunities for agents to squeeze some more hundreds of thousands of dollars out of athletic departments for their clients.
Do not rule out Cal’ himself. Although his program has been “around it” since he arrived in Lexington in 2009, the team has one national title in his tenure, in 2012.
That’s 5,324 years in Kentucky years.
He committed the unpardonable sin of not reaching the NCAA Tournament this season, and finished 9-16.
Calipari is only 62, and there is always that chance he’s ready to move on, but coaching at a “football school” does not sound like a Cal’ move.
Beard has been linked to the Texas job for years, and while he may ultimately be the top candidate there are hurdles.
In April of 2019, Beard signed a six-year extension worth $27.45 million, which makes him one of the highest paid coaches in the country.
The hurdle is what may as well be called the “Texas Punishment Provision.”
Included in this contract is a $3 million buyout for a program outside of the Big 12. For a school inside of the Big 12, the buyout goes to $6 million, but drops to $4 million on April 1.
For most schools this clause is a ship blocking the Suez canal. Texas can build its own canal.
CDC could not do much better than Beard, whose ties are throughout Texas. He may not play the most exciting brand of basketball, but he works 25 hour days, is a constant salesman, wins, and he was seconds away from winning a national title in 2019.
If UT wants Beard, and Beard wants UT, they will find the $4 million to pay Texas Tech. And Texas Tech should not accept a penny less.
The University of Texas athletic department has more money than all of Saudi Arabia, but Del Conte may have a hard time convincing the university regents to sign off on that check for men’s basketball, especially after the cash paid out for the football staff change over.
Between the football coaching contracts, and now a new men’s basketball coaching staff, this will be more than $100 million in guaranteed money for UT to pay.
At a minimum, Shaka leaving on his own accord made Del Conte’s life easier. He doesn’t have to fire the coach, and he doesn’t have to pay the buyout.
He liked Shaka, because everyone does, but he was not CDC’s hire. He will now hire his guy, which means everyone in Lubbock, and every Red Raider fan, will be checking their phones with a hint of dread until this is done.
This story was originally published March 26, 2021 at 2:04 PM.
