Six weeks.
It took Marquette head men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart six weeks to find a replacement for assistant coach Nevada Smith. Longer, if you figure that Smart knew that Smith was interviewing for the job long before he was announced as the new Siena head coach on April 1st
.In any case, our long national nightmare came to an end on Tuesday afternoon as Marquette announced that Rodney Crawford has joined the men’s basketball staff as an assistant coach.
Crawford on his new job, from the Marquette
press release:
“Joining Marquette is truly an honor,” Crawford said. “I’ve always had tremendous respect for Coach Smart and the culture he has built. The energy, toughness, and connectedness of his teams have always stood out to me. The opportunity to be part of a program defined by strong values, passionate people, and a championship mindset is something I’m incredibly grateful for. I’m excited to be in Milwaukee and ready to get to work.”
Smart on his new assistant:
“Coach Rock brings incredible passion, toughness and basketball acumen to our program,” Smart said. “Over his career, he’s proven that he can help players elevate their games and consistently impact the defensive end with his presence and grit.”
After graduating from Cincinnati in 2002 — yes, he’s a former Bob Huggins player — Crawford got his coaching start a couple of years later at the Ohio high school level. After a year as a NAIA head coach, Crawford got a spot in Division 1 college hoops as an assistant at Eastern Kentucky under head coach Jeff Neubauer. When his boss turned the EKU job into the Fordham job, Crawford eventually followed along and spent four seasons on the bench there, there as associate head coach.
Crawford took a step backwards from there, joining John Brannen’s staff at Cincinnati as director of player personnel. When Brannen was relieved of duties after just two seasons, Crawford caught on with Richie Riley’s staff at South Alabama and he’s been there ever since. I don’t know how much is Crawford and how much is Riley, but for the past two seasons, USA was top 100 in defensive turnover rate AND top 15 in defensive free throw rate. When you’re forcing turnovers without committing fouls, that’s pretty good stuff. The Jaguars weren’t actually good on defense in either season — #98 and #193 in overall efficiency per KenPom.com — but y’know, building blocks and so on.
With that said, I’m not 100% sure replacing DeAndre Haynes (history of developing high major guards) and Nevada Smith (architect of the entire offensive structure since Smart came to Milwaukee) with Crawford (MU press release highlights the good things his teams did on defense) and Jeremy Ballard (Shaka Smart disciple) is a net positive in terms of what the assistants are offering the room. At worst, it seems like there’s not an offensive tactical mind in the room. Obviously, if you’ve gotten to the Division 1 level as an assistant coach, you’ve probably got some good ideas about running an offense, but this makes it seem like Marquette no longer has a specialist in that department.
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