ACC, Andy Enfield's resume, Dallas helps SMU Basketball to hot recruiting start

SMU Basketball is off to a strong recruiting start in the 2025 recruiting class, part of the reason why Andy Enfield was hired away from USC. The program wanted a jolt of energy entering the ACC, a league Enfield is familiar with from his days at Florida State.

With the hot start to recruiting, which includes two four-star prospects in the class of 2025, Enfield is reaping the benefits of the league and Dallas.

“I think the ACC is big,” Enfield said at SMU Media Day. “The city of Dallas, we’re really the only high major or power conference team in the city. So it gives us a little bit of a differentiation from other schools in the state and the state of Texas has a lot of very good basketball players. Dallas is a hub of that, so we find we can get in our car and drive to see a lot of high school players that are outstanding players. I think we just have to sell the future as a coaching staff. It’s exciting, exciting time to be in Dallas. It’s a great basketball city and SMU is right in the mix of everything.”

Dallas’ strong recruiting base yielded two local commits, Jermaine O’Neal, Jr. and Jaden Toombs, earlier this year. Like when Enfield was in Los Angeles, the emphasis was also on local prospects.

“It’s very similar. When we took the USC job 11 and a half, 12 years ago, we made a conscious effort to recruit Southern California players to have them come in and take ownership of the USC program and they did that,” Enfield said. “We were able to get some very talented young players. At that time, there was no transfer portal, so every player we recruited either had to transfer and sit out a year, but we made the effort to build the program through the high school ranks and we had to wait for them to graduate and come to USC.

“We’re doing the same thing here at SMU. We’re recruiting a lot of Texas high school players to have them come take ownership of this program. SMU has a great reputation, so we can fill in those recruiting spots with some national high school players and then the transfer portal in the spring.”

For more in-depth SMU basketball recruiting info, check out The Hilltop Review by clicking HERE.

SMU’s see that success already with a staff that’s familiar with each other. Enfield brought his entire staff from USC with him to Dallas, which is paying off.

“They’re not only great coaches, they’re great recruiters, they’re great people and they’re fun to be around,” he said. “So we have a great time together, and just very fortunate they all came.”

On top of the league and city, Enfield’s recruited plenty of NBA Draft choices. He’s had eight of them with multiple Top 10 picks. USC was one of three teams to have had at least one player selected in six of the last seven NBA Drafts.

Enfield’s style jives with what players can expect at the next level.

“I would say more of an NBA style, because we hold our guys accountable, especially defensively, hold our players accountable in the classroom, making sure that they go to class and get the education that we looked their parents in the eye and said they would get,” Enfield said. “So we do hold our players accountable. My belief is, there are a lot of ways to win basketball games and build a culture and a program, and my personality is such that we will hold you accountable and help you become a better basketball player.”

These days, NIL is a big piece to the puzzle and with SMU’s support, Enfield is confident he has what he needs to compete.

“We think we have tremendous support from our administration, from the NIL collectives, from the president to Rick Hart, the athletic director, to David Miller, the Board of Trustees. There’s a commitment here to go into the ACC and compete at the highest level.”

All the pieces are in place for SMU for the hot start to continue long-term. Based on Enfield’s recruiting track record, it’s a good bet to take he finds a way to keep stockpiling talent.