Schreiner announced late Friday afternoon that Jimmy Smith has
agreed to become the new head coach of the men's basketball
program. Smith has been the assistant men's basketball coach at the
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, a fellow member of the American
Southwest Conference, for the past three years. During that time,
an already highly successful program saw its greatest success in
its history.
Smith's hiring comes a month after Drew Miller announced that he
was resigning because his wife, who had earned a significant
promotion within the U.S. military, was being transferred to the
nation's capital for her new job. Under Miller, the men's program
moved to unprecedented success, on and off the court, and now the
reins transfer to Smith.
"I am extremely excited to be the new head coach at Schreiner
University," said Smith upon his hiring. "I've always had a great
amount of respect for Schreiner from a distance but through this
process I have developed an even greater admiration for the
university and the things that it represents. I have very high
expectations for the players in my program and they will be
student-athletes in the true sense of the word. We will have a
heavy focus on academics and will utilize the tremendous support
systems that the university offers to ensure academic success.
Athletically, I am excited about the current players we have in the
program. I look forward to adding some recruits to go with them to
continue moving the program towards being a perennial championship
contender."
Smith inherits a team that is coming off an NCAA-era high in 2011-12. The Mountaineers went 13-13 overall and 11-10 in ASC play, both records for the program. Still, the season came down to one game at the end of the regular season to decide if Schreiner would earn its first trip to the ASC postseason tournament in history. Freshman standout Travis Pflughaupt had broken his nose in practice the day before the game and freshman Stevan Guerrero - who played an important role in the improvement of the team as the year went along - was already lost for the season due to surgery on a ruptured tendon in his finger.
In that deciding game's first five minutes, star point guard Darren Smith went down with a serious knee injury in a winner-take-all contest with Concordia (Texas). Rather than accept a season-ending loss, the team rallied - led by senior Tyrie Prince who played his best game in his college career when it mattered most - and Schreiner went on to an improbable 90-78 win. The Mountaineers then fell in the ASC quarterfinals to Texas-Dallas.
Athletic director Ron Macosko saidL "When Drew announced that he
was resigning to help his family, it was a very sad time for us. He
did such a great job in building this program in so many ways. When
the position opened, we had a tremendous response from the coaching
fraternity and the search committee had a huge job on its hands -
especially as we moved along in the process. We really wanted to
find a man who was going to continue to build a strong culture of
excellence in all respects of our program. Someone who understands
NCAA D-III and embraces its values and philosophy. Someone who is
passionate about basketball but also about seeing his players
succeed on the court as well as in life after SU. We think we found
the perfect man for the job in Jimmy Smith and couldn't be happier
to welcome him, his wife Lori and young son Harrison into the
Schreiner family."
Smith was a four-year letter-winner for coach Ken DeWeese at
UMHB. He was also a three-time Academic All-ASC honoree and
was named to the Verizon/CoSIDA Academic All-District VI First Team
his senior year. He graduated in 2004 with a degree in business
administration and took an assistant coaching position on the men's
basketball staff at Division I Sam Houston State while
working on his master's degree. At SHSU, he coached under Bob
Marlin, who is now the head coach at Louisiana-Lafayette. The
Bearcats posted a record of 40-21 in those two seasons and went
22-10 in the Southland Conference over that span. He earned his MBA
at SHSU in 2005.
In July of 2006, Smith decided to put his degrees to work in the
real world and was a regional and heathcare representative for
pharmaceutical powerhouse Pfizer. After three years of success at
Pfizer, Smith made the decision to go back to his passion and his
basketball coaching and teaching roots and returned to assist
DeWeese at his alma mater. During the past three seasons,
UMHB has posted an .800 winning percentage, made three NCAA
Tournament appearances, one American Southwest Conference
championship and two ASC West Division titles. Last year, the Cru
made it to the NCAA Sweet 16 and finished 24-1 in the regular
season and 20-1 in ASC play, which are all school records.
The Mountaineer program was no less successful off the floor,
earning a 2.99 team GPA in the fall semester with 16 team members
earning academic distinction. Schreiner loses seniors Prince,
Kevin Carrell and Trent Noack to graduation, but the players who
accounted for the overwhelming majority of the scoring and
rebounding load this past year are eligible to return in
2012-13.