Texas head men's basketball coach Shaka Smart leaving for Marquette
AUSTIN, Texas - University of Texas head men's basketball coach Shaka Smart is leaving to coach the Marquette Golden Eagles. It'll be a homecoming in a way for Smart who was born in Madison, Wisconsin.
Marquette University's VP and Director of Athletics Bill Schol announced that Smart will be the 18th head coach of the university's men's basketball program.
Smart will be formally introduced to the Marquette community in a press conference on Monday, March 19. The press conference will be streamed live online.
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"I can't tell you how thrilled I am to welcome Shaka, his wife Maya, and their daughter Zora to the Marquette and Milwaukee communities," Scholl said. "We undertook an exhaustive national search, during which we discussed our opening with a significant number of highly-qualified coaches. The interest in our position was tremendous and the market certainly understands what a wonderful place Marquette is to coach college basketball."
"Throughout the search, one individual continued to rise to the top and that was Shaka," Scholl added. "I am beyond excited for our current and future student-athletes who will have the great fortune of being mentored by Shaka. He is a great teacher of the game, while also being a great molder of young men. And I am proud to say, he is now a Marquette Golden Eagle!"
FOX Sports says that Smart has a 414-272 career record over 12 seasons as a head coach at Virginia Commonwealth (2009-15) and at Texas.
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"Maya, Zora, and I are absolutely thrilled to join the Marquette family," Smart said. "I'm grateful to President Lovell and Bill Scholl for entrusting me with the growth and development of this storied basketball program and the student-athletes who make it so special. I am extremely excited to get to Milwaukee to begin building relationships and getting to work on the court!"
The Longhorns went 109-86 in Smart's six years as head coach and made it to the NCAA men's basketball tournament three times. This year, Texas went 19-8 and got a No. 3 seed but the Longhorns were upset by 14 seed Abilene Christian.
Smart will replace Steve Wojciechowski at Marquette.
FOX Sports contributed to this report.