Monday morning, SMU officially announced the hire of USC head coach Andy Enfield, who leaves the Trojans behind after 11 years with the program.
Those 11 years will be remembered fondly by USC, as athletic director Jennifer Cohen released a statement following Enfield departure thanking him for his time and contributions with the men’s basketball program. Here was that statement, which the team account posted to Twitter/X:
“On behalf of USC Athletics, I want to thank Andy Enfield for his eleven seasons of leadership and service to the University. He elevated and established USC Men’s Basketball as a premier program with a strong national presence. We are so grateful for everything Andy accomplished and we wish him, Amana, Aila, Lily and Marcum all the best in this new chapter in their lives
“Our national search for a new head coach is underway and I am confident that we will find the right person to lead our program. We have a track record of competitiveness, passionate supporters and fans, a robust donor collective, and are about to compete in the nation’s premier athletic conference. There is no ceiling to what our program can achieve and I look forward to introducing our next head coach.”
Enfield’s decision to leave a national brand like USC for SMU certainly isn’t typical of head coaches in his position. However, the Mustangs were interested in considerably raising their profile on the hardwood as they transition into the ACC, a much stronger hoops league than the AAC, this offseason.
So, they opted to fire second-year head coach Rob Lanier, who doubled the team’s win total from 10 to 20 after his first season but still did not achieve the progress SMU was apparently hoping for. Following Lanier’s ouster, folks around the program made it known that the Mustangs would pursue some major names in a splash hire. Well, a guy who coached at USC for more than a decade and made an Elite 8 just three seasons ago certainly satisfies that criteria.
Now, USC will begin a coaching search of its own, and ought to have a deep pool of terrific candidates given their upcoming move to the Big Ten, the appeal of Los Angeles, and the national brand recognition of the school altogether.
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