Alright, so I was thinking about coaches the other day, and Shaka Smart popped into my head. I remember the name, but I couldn’t quite place all the teams he’s been with off the top of my head. So, I decided to do a little digging, just tracing his path.
First place my mind went was VCU. Yeah, Virginia Commonwealth. How could you forget that incredible run they had? Had to double-check the year, and yeah, it was 2011. They went all the way from the First Four, one of those early play-in games, straight to the Final Four. That was something else. Really made a name for himself there, I think.
So, naturally, I wondered where he went after VCU became such a hot name. I looked it up. Ah, that’s right, he took the job at Texas. Headed down to Austin to coach the Longhorns. Seems like he spent a decent chunk of time there, maybe six years or so, starting around 2015.
Then I thought, “Is he still at Texas?” A quick check showed, nope, he moved on from there too. Found out his current spot is head coach at Marquette. Looks like he started there in 2021 and is still leading their program now.
So, the path I pieced together was:
- Virginia Commonwealth (VCU)
- University of Texas
- Marquette University (where he is now)
While I was looking all this up, I saw he’s actually taken these teams to the NCAA Tournament a whole bunch of times. Across the three schools, it adds up to like 11 tournament appearances during his head coaching career so far. Pretty impressive consistency. Of course, that VCU Final Four in 2011 is still the biggest highlight most people probably remember when they hear his name.
It’s always kind of interesting to follow where coaches land. They bounce around between jobs sometimes. Took me just a bit of searching around online to connect the dots on his career path. Simple enough to track down once I started looking.
