On Tuesday, Marquette men’s basketball announced the hiring of Jeremy Ballard as an assistant coach.
Well, sure, that makes sense, it’s been six days since Siena announced Nevada Smith as their new head coach, obviously Shaka Smart knew that Smith was up for the job long before that point, he went about his hiring process with a couple extra days in hand, he knows the guy he wanted to hire and got it done relatively quickly. Nothing odd here.
Except………..
Paragraph 3 of the Ballard press release, emphasis
mine:
Ballard joins the Marquette staff after the departures of assistant coaches Nevada Smith, who was named the head coach at Siena on April 1st, and DeAndre Haynes, who left the program at the conclusion of the 2025-26 season after five years with the Golden Eagles.
Just tried to fire that fastball past everyone by throwing it three paragraphs in on a press release that only real deep sickos like me are going to read, huh? If we take the most literal translation of that sentence, DeAndre Haynes has been off the coaching staff for nearly a month, exactly four weeks coming up on either Wednesday (the day of the last game) or Thursday (the first day after the last game), or four days short of “a month ago” since MU’s last game was March 11th and it is currently April 7th. Just disappeared off into the ether for reasons that were not and are not explained, oh, and by the way: Still on the team roster page. Maybe that’s not that weird, since it’s going to still be true tomorrow that Haynes was on the staff for this past year, but you see my point.
Wonder why he left the team immediately after the season ended. Wonder if this sliiiiiightly cryptic Instagram post from a week ago — in theory long after he was not on staff any more! — holds any clues.
ANYWAY
Jeremy Ballard.
He is coming straight from the Big Chair at FIU, where he’s held the head coaching position for the past eight seasons, which are his only eight seasons as a head coach. He posted a record of 113-141 with the Panthers, and before you do the math on his winning percentage, please realize that he holds the record for most wins in FIU history. We should also note that Ballard ended his time at FIU after being let go in the wake of a 15-17 season this past year. that was his sixth straight losing season with the Panthers, and unfortunately for his ongoing employment in Miami, he never did better than the 20-14 record he had in Year 1.
Other than adding a 44 year old with Division 1 head coaching experience, it’s important to know that Ballard has known Marquette head coach Shaka Smart for over a decade. He was on staff with Smart at VCU from 2012-15, which is when Smart left Richmond for Texas. That was his third stop as an assistant, going from Colgate — his alma mater! — to Tulsa before arriving at VCU, then going from Illinois State to Pittsburgh before returning to VCU with Mike Rhodes as head coach and then getting the FIU job.
Shaka Smart’s quote on Ballard:
“Jeremy Ballard is one of the best coaches I have been around in 27 years in college basketball,” Smart said. “He will add value to our program in a wide variety of ways.”
Ballard on his new job:
“I am beyond grateful to Coach Smart and Marquette University for this incredible opportunity to join a national championship program,” Ballard said. “I’m thrilled to reconnect with Coach Smart and help him and the staff on the quest for winning championships and maintaining a championship culture.”
In theory, Marquette is still looking for another assistant coach, since both Nevada Smith and DeAndre Haynes have left vacancies behind. There’s no rule saying you have to max out on the NCAA limit of assistants, but if Shaka Smart thought he needed five assistants before, then it makes sense that he’ll be looking to get back to that number for the 2026-27 season.
