Marquette’s Shaka Smart voted men’s AP coach of the year

Shaka Smarthas packed an entire career’s worth of experiences into 14 years asa college head coach.

He led VCU toan improbable Final Four as a 30-something wunderkind in 2011,guided mighty Texas to a Big 12 Tournament title during sixotherwise tepid years in Austin, and now has turned Marquette intoa Big East beast.

It’ssometimes easy to forget he’s still just 45 years old.

Yet his workwith the Golden Eagles this season might have been his best: Pickedninth in the 11-team league by its coaches, they won theregular-season title going away, then beat Xavier towintheir first Big East Tournamentchampionship.

That earnedSmart the AP coach of the year award Friday. He garnered 24 of 58votes from anational media paneltoedgeKansas State’s Jerome Tang, who received 13 votes beforeguiding the Wildcats to the Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament, andHouston’s Kelvin Sampson, who earned 10 before taking the Cougarsto the Sweet 16.

Voting openedafter the regular season and closed at the start of the NCAATournament, where the No. 2 seed Golden Eagles wereknocked out in the secondroundby Michigan State and Smart’slongtime mentor, Tom Izzo.

“I’m verygrateful to win this award,” said Smart, the second Marquette coachto take it home after Hall of Famer Al McGuire in 1971, “butobviously it always comes back to the guys you have on yourteam.

“Early on,”Smart said, “we had a real sense the guys had genuine care andconcern for one another, and we had a very good foundation forrelationships that we could continue to build on. And over thecourse of seasons, you go through so many different experiences asa team. And those experiences either bring you closer together orfurther apart. Our guys did a great job, even through adverseexperiences, even through challenges, becoming closertogether.”

It’s hardlysurprising such cohesion is what Smart would choose to remembermost from a most memorable season.

The native ofMadison, Wisconsin, who holds a master’s degree in social sciencefrom California University of Pennsylvania, long ago earned areputation for building close bonds with players and a tight-knitcamaraderie within his teams.

No matter howhigh or low the Golden Eagles were this season, those traitscarried them through.

“Everythingthat we go through, whether it be the retreat that we went onbefore the season, all the workouts in the summer, he’s preachinghis culture,” said Tyler Kolek,a third-team All-American. “Andhe’s showing his leadership every single day, and just trying toimpart that on us, and kind of put it in our DNA. Because it’sdefinitely in his DNA.”

That’sreflected in the way Smart, whoaccepted the Marquettejobtwo years ago after an often bumpy tenure at Texas,has rebuilt the Golden Eagles program after it had begun tolanguish under Steve Wojciechowski.

Sure, Smartlanded his share of transfers — Kolek among them — in an era inwhich the portal has become so prevalent. But he largely built ateam that finished 29-7 this season around high school recruits,eschewing a quick fix in the hopes of long-term stability. Amongthose prospects were Kam Jones, their leading scorer, anddo-everything forward David Joplin.

“He teachesus lots of things about the importance of each other,” Joplin said.“He lets us know, time and time again, that we can’t do anythingwithout each other, but together we can do anything.”

That soundslike a decidedly old-school approach to building a collegebasketball program.

One embracedby a still-youthful head coach.

“I thinkbeing a head coach has never been more complicated, never been morenuanced, and never more all-encompassing,” Smart told the AP in awide-ranging interview last week. “Does that mean it’s harder? Youcould say that.

“What makesyour job less hard,” Smart said, “is having a captive audience inyour players, and guys that truly understand and own what goes intowinning, and that’s what we had this past year. But those thingsjust don’t happen. There are a lot of steps that have to occur onthe part of a lot of people, not just the coach, to get to whereyou have a winning environment.”