Tag: Becky Hammon

The Longhorns athletic program is no stranger to making a splash. Or at the very least – attempting to.

Texas hired head coach Shaka Smart after his sudden success with Virginia Commonwealth University, one of the hottest names on the market at the time. Current head football coach Tom Herman was highly-targeted after his stint with Houston, before ultimately deciding to back out on his verbal agreement with Louisiana State University and head to Texas.

Arguably the best coach in college football, Nick Saban, was set to receive a $100 million contract to coach the Longhorns football team in 2014. If someone such as Saban, a successful and long-time Alabama coach, showed legitimate interest in leaving his current organization to come to Austin, who wouldn’t?

With the current state of the men’s basketball program, a splash may be exactly what they need. Five years is an ample time frame for a coach to get their program headed in the right direction, Smart’s production and player development has been underwhelming. This season in particular, he’s leading an inconsistent team that ranks last in the conference in several categories (scoring offense, rebounding margin, steals, turnover margin, etc.).

For lack of a better word, it’s all bad.

Although Smart is under contract through 2023, Texas has every right to begin interviewing new head coaching candidates at the conclusion of this season. Several names have already been tied to Texas as Smart’s potential successor, such as John Beilein, Chris Beard, and what’s likely to be numerous others.

One name in particular caught my attention. After listening to 104.9 The Horn’s morning show with Bucky and Erin, they mentioned San Antonio Spurs current assistant coach Becky Hammon. To be completely honest, why not?

Yes, she’s a female. She’s also highly-respected among players and colleagues across the NBA. Several Spurs players have labeled her as the best assistant coach they’ve ever worked with, Pau Gasol described Hammon’s precise attention to detail and abilities as a coach in his passionate letter to The Player’s Tribune in 2018.

“I’ve played with some of the best players of this generation … and I’ve played under two of the sharpest minds in the history of sports, in Phil Jackson and Gregg Popovich. And I’m telling you: Becky Hammon can coach. I’m not saying she can coach pretty well. I’m not saying she can coach enough to get by. I’m not saying she can coach almost at the level of the NBA’s male coaches. I’m saying: Becky Hammon can coach NBA basketball. Period.”

Gasol continues on to discredit any myth surrounding the potential of a female head basketball coach. Fast forward to 2020, where Hammon’s name is widely speculated to nearly every NBA head coaching vacancy, most notably the Cleveland Cavaliers and New York Knicks.

Although jumping into college basketball would be a bit of a change for Hammon, if any college basketball program were to look to make that type of splash hiring, it’d be Texas.

It’s clear she possesses the respect, discipline, and attention to detail, but several questions would still remain. How would it impact recruiting? What type of coaches would she have join her staff? Is she even interested in transitioning to the college level? Success is the best measurement for recruiting, if her production speaks for itself – who’s to say no?

After all, San Antonio is just a short drive from Austin.