What had been buzzed about and reported for the last week became official Monday as SMU announced the hiring of basketball coach Andy Enfield, ending his 11-year run with the USC that saw his teams make five NCAA tournament appearances and a run to the Elite Eight in 2021.
USC athletic director Jen Cohen and university president Carol Folt both released statements, thanking Enfield for his contributions to the program, which included a 220-146 career record with the Trojans. The Elite Eight appearance in 2021 was the program's first since 2001, and Enfield's teams set the school wins record with 26 in both the 2016-17 seasons and the 2021-22 seasons.
This will be the first major hire as USC AD for Cohen, who said "a national search is underway."
Folt, meanwhile, said she is "very bullish on the upward trajectory of our men's and women's basketball programs, and I'm confident [Cohen] will hire a coach who will lead us to success in the Big Ten and beyond."
Enfield and his staff helped brought a degree of stability to a USC basketball program that had just one winning season in the four years prior to his arrival and that was struggling to resonate with top local recruits.
Enfield, who was hired after taking March Madness Cinderella story Florida Gulf Coast to the Sweet 16 in 2013, endured two losing seasons to start his Trojans tenure before breaking through with a 21-13 finish and NCAA tournament appearance in 2016 and a return the next season while going 26-10.
After arguably being snubbed from the bracket in 2018 despite finishing second in the Pac-12 regular-season standings and then enduring a losing season in 2018-19, the Trojans would have returned to the tournament in 2020 if not for it being cancelled due to Covid. USC then made three straight NCAA tournament appearances, starting with the Elite Eight run followed by a pair of first-round exits.
This season was preceded by great expectations as leading scorer Boogie Ellis returned to the roster and USC signed the No. 1 recruit in the country in point guard Isaiah Collier, plus a top-50 prospect in Bronny James among others.
James' season was set on a different course when he survived a cardiac arrest scare during a summer workout and Ellis and Collier missed significant time with injuries during the middle of the season. USC ultimately finished 15-18 as questions mounted about Enfield's future.
Ultimately, Enfield answered that question himself.
Enfield deserves credit, along with his staff, for significantly boosting recruiting, as the Trojans routinely sent players into the NBA draft during his tenure and landed a string of five-star recruits in recent years from Kevin Porter Jr. to Onyeka Okongwu, Isaiah Mobley, Evan Mobley, Vince Iwuchukwu and Collier. Porter, Okongwu and Evan Mobley were all first-round NBA draft picks.
That should make this a more attractive job than the one he took more than a decade ago.
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