LONNQUIST: With Enfield, SMU hopes potential surges to results

Andy Enfield was persona non grata when he brought his USC Trojans into Moody Coliseum on Dec. 2, 2017.

After all, he was the guy who nine months earlier knocked SMU out of the 2017 NCAA tournament. The 11^th-seeded Trojans had just come from Dayton to Tulsa following their First Four game and pulled off the 66-65 upset of the 6^th-seeded Mustangs.

Couple that with the Trojans 78-73 win over the Mustangs during the regular season in Los Angeles and it only added to the “We owe them” mood that engulfed Moody.

SMU sent the Trojans packing, 72-55. Debt paid.

Nearly six years after that game, Enfield smiled on Tuesday and laughed when I asked him what he remembered about the night. It was as if it was yesterday. It also revealed his persona where his skin was thick as Trojan armor.

“The students were right behind the bench or to the side of the bench,” Enfield said in his meeting with the media at the Miller Event Center. “They said a few nice choice words to me as an opposing coach. And I got a nice chuckle out of that.’’

But what struck him that night also played a role in luring Enfield to become SMU’s new leader of the men’s basketball program.

“But the arena itself is incredible,” Enfield said. “We walked out of there, and I can remember saying, ‘Wow, that is a tremendous home court advantage.”

A lifelong ACC hoops junkie both as follower and assistant coach at Florida State completed part of his dream of being in this prestigious basketball conference. The other part was to coach in it.

Now, he can when SMU joins the ACC July 1.

SMU is entrusting its dreams into Enfield’s dreams. The fact that both aspire to excel in the same conference allows the start of something that has the potential to compete, win and be respected.

Ah, that dreaded word, “potential.’’ It has always hounded SMU basketball going back to the Sonny Allen days of the 1970s if not further.

There have been periods where the basketball has been great. Moody Magic couldn’t be matched. All you need is the 2015 and 2017 American Athletic Conference Championships for validation.

However, SMU’s relationship with its men’s basketball program has been mysterious. For where it is geographically positioned. For where it can draw recruits. For it becoming something like a Gonzaga or a Cincinnati, it could never get there.

Bad hires. Scandals. Bad selling of the program. Bad players. An empty arena on most nights.

“Any time you have decade long period of time and whatever you’re doing, you’re gonna have peaks and valleys,’’ said SMU athletic director Rick Hart, who is going on his fourth basketball coach between Larry Brown, Tim Jankovich, Rob Lanier and now Enfield.

“But I feel like every leader we’ve had of our programs has been just a tremendous person, the right leader at the right time to do what our program needed.’’

Well, what SMU needs to do is vanquish the potential, capitalize and win. It’s always been there. As an opposing coach, Enfield experienced it. And it wasn’t a joke when St. John’s head coach Rick Pitino listed Moody Coliseum as one of the five toughest places to coach in his career. Pitino coached in Moody only once, 2014 when he was at Louisville.

The most difficult arenas my teams have faced:
1) Kansas
2) Kentucky
3) Michigan St
4) SMU
5) West Virginia
6) Grand Canyon
For a program in its infant stages of college basketball, its student section is amazing

— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) October 3, 2018

Mix in the outreach and interest from other unnamed coaches SMU Board of Trustees president David Miller and SMU president R. Gerald Turner said they received – and I don’t have a problem taking them at their word – and it doesn’t surprise me.  

Between Moody and the Crum practice facility, the link SMU officials believe that’s been missing has been playing in a big-time conference. Well, the university cleared that hurdle Sept. 1, 2023.

There are no more excuses. The only excuse it really has is the build toward respectability in the ACC. It could take one season. It could take three. With basketball rosters, it’s an annual wild proposition. Enfield has the resume he built between Florida Gulf Coast and USC to help SMU basketball cross thresholds its never enjoyed.

With the securing of Enfield and improvements to football that included head football coach Rhett Lashlee’s extension, SMU might be hoping it isn’t considered a football school or a basketball school. It’s hoping to become a player in every sponsored sport.

It can happen anywhere. Alabama will never shed its football-school image. However, in the last five years, Nate Oats has won two SEC regular season and tournament championships, taken the Crimson Tide to three Sweet 16s and the first-ever Final Four appearance this Saturday.

Although Michigan had a down year and fired Juwan Howard, that’s a program that has been to numerous Sweet 16s, Elite 8s and won a national title in 1989.

What USC has run into over the years is that while Enfield enjoyed solid seasons, Trojan basketball always ran a distant second to football. Tepid support validated that.

The advantage SMU has is that it doesn’t have an image in either sport yet. But if it can summon success with its two revenue producers, the image of being well-rounded would be secured.

To be sure the Mustangs will be picked toward the bottom of the ACC preseason poll when it’s released this fall. That would be the dreaded 16-18 spots where non-postseason conference tournament teams reside.

You can’t compare what Enfield faced in 2013 when he started rebuilding USC to what he inherits at SMU in 2024. College athletics has changed drastically with NIL.

Financial resources, facilities to support in Enfield’s words, ‘a program that wants to be great’ are Enfield’s allies on The Hilltop. Perhaps he puts together a team that surprises in 2024-25. Perhaps he doesn’t and it will be a year where the climb is starting. Still, the journey has your attention.

Maybe on some future January night, Enfield will go through the ruckus Moody Coliseum end-of-game handshake line – after SMU has knocked off a Virginia or Duke or NC State – and hear something from that opposing coach noting how tough the atmosphere was for his team.

To which Enfield will probably answer, “Been there. Done that!’’