ACC Preview #15 - SMU, Cal And Stanford

What to make of the new guys?

Quite honestly, previewing the three ACC expansion schools isn’t going to be easy. We know next to nothing about the players at those schools, so let’s focus primarily on the coaches.

SMU has only ever tangentially been on our radar. We last paid attention to Stanford when Johnny Dawkins was there and the only reason we have ever paid attention to Cal is because the program has been so bad for so long.

Well, that’s not true. Obviously we paid attention to Cal during the 1993 NCAA Tournament when Jason Kidd led Cal to a memorable 82-77 upset of Duke.

Since then?

Not very much.

Cal has very rarely been a factor in the PAC-12, let alone nationally.

Well that’s not entirely true either, but it’s been awhile: Cal won the national championship in 1959 under the great Pete Newell. This was two years after San Francisco repeated and five years before UCLA’s epic reign started, a golden era for Western basketball.

SMU, as the school proved when it joined the ACC, is willing to spend big money (the Mustangs are going to forego substantial conference revenues in the short term and donors just made it up). They have had some solid coaches over the years too. Sonny Allen, who had revolutionary ideas about basketball, was there from 1976-1980, followed by the Bastard Dave Bliss (so much for solid). Larry Brown spent a few years there. Rob Lanier was building before he was dumped last spring for Andy Enfield as SMU prepped to join the ACC.

There was a brief Matt Doherty era but you can’t have everything.

Enfield should be a major upgrade. Although USC came out of the PAC-12 collapse relatively well as a new Big Ten member, Enfield chose SMU partly because it would compete in the ACC.

He was an outstanding assistant at Florida State and did a star turn at Florida Gulf Coast before taking the USC job, and after a rocky couple of years, did well there until last season’s 15-18 stinker.

He’ll probably do well at SMU too. Great trivia: he held the NCAA record for free throw percentage (.925) until Blake Ahearn put it out of reach at .975.

He’s particularly good on offense and certainly recruited well at USC. Texas is a rich recruiting base and there’s plenty of talent to go around. Enfield will probably do well at SMU. The only player there we know anything about though is one-and-done Wake guard Kevin Miller. Some anonymous coaches questioned his competitive desire last season, but we’ll see how Enfield does with him.

Stanford has hired Kyle Smith. He was at Washington State, which was orphaned by the PAC-12 dissolution and he really had no choice but to head elsewhere (Washington State and Oregon State had an arrangement with the Big West, but that just fell apart).

He’s seen as a master of analytics and did a tremendous job at Washington State, which is not an easy place to succeed.

He did very well at Columbia, which is a tough job, also succeeded at San Francisco and won at Washington State.

None of these are easy jobs and neither is Stanford. The academics are difficult and so is the admissions department.

Can Nerdball succeed there?

Maybe, but as Barry pointed out recently, it’s not like the rest of the world is ignoring analytics. It might have been a huge edge a few years ago, but now, not quite as much.

However, like anything else in life, some people are better than others and it may be that Smith can do things with data that others can’t. Watching Stanford and Virginia, where we believe Tony Bennett is also doing a lot with analytics, should be fascinating.

Former Blue Devil Jaylen Blakes is at Stanford now as a grad student. He’ll help tremendously on defense and also a scout for ACC programs. We miss you, Jaylen! Best of luck.

Cal and Stanford are bitter rivals but Cal is not above hiring Stanford guys. They hired Mike Montgomery after his brilliant run at Stanford and a two-year run with the Golden State Warriors. Between the two schools, he only missed the post-season twice, both at Stanford. The guy was a tremendous coach.

One of his star players, Mark “Mad Dog” Madsen, is going into his second year at Cal. His first season, the Golden Bears finished 13-19. Before that, he was at Utah Valley and in his final season there, led the Wolverines to a 28-win season.

We don’t know a whole lot about his coaching style yet, but he played for Montgomery, and if he paid attention, he learned a lot. He also played for Phil Jackson with the Los Angeles Lakers, where he was part of two championship teams and won the respect of Shaquille O’ Neal, who admired his tenacity. He should have learned a lot there, too.

Cal and Stanford are in a tough spot now because travel is going to be very difficult and both schools take academics seriously. This is less of a problem for SMU, but still won’t be easy.

In the short term, we’d expect SMU to excel more quickly. Enfield is a good coach, offensively gifted, and he has a nice recruiting base and lots of money behind his program. SMU will probably do fairly well.

It’ll be tougher for the West Coasters but not impossible. Good coaching is the first key and they appear to have that. We’ll just have to see what these guys can do and next year, we’ll be able to talk about the programs more.