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Multiple reports are saying it is likely Texas Longhorns head coach Shaka Smart is off to Milwaukee to take the head coaching job at Marquette University.
Marquette has reached an agreement in principle to hire Texas coach Shaka Smart, a source told @CBSSports.
— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) March 26, 2021
Smart and the Longhorns won the Big 12 Championship this season, defeating Oklahoma State to claim the first tournament crown in Austin since 1996. They then lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament 53-52 to No. 14 seed Abilene Christian University.
Smart grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, and was a three-year starter at Oregon High School in the Badger State capital. He was a head coach at VCU for six years, leading the first team to win a play-in game and then make the Final Four in 2009. In six seasons with the Rams and running an up-tempo, pressing style that was mimicked many places afterwards, he went to five NCAA Tournaments before heading to Austin.
At Texas he won the league tournament this year, but is 0-3 in the NCAA Tournament since arriving. His boss is athletic director Chris Del Conte, who issued a vote of confidence after the loss to ACU this week, but he also did the same for football coach Tom Herman before eventually firing him anyway.