Jon Rothstein offers high praise for Andy Enfield, SMU entering '25-'26

SMU is coming off what was a very successful first year both of their tenure under Andy Enfield and as part of the Atlantic Coast Conference. Jon Rothstein could see that continuing into Enfield’s second season in Dallas now with at least another chance to make it into the NCAA Tournament.

Rothstein answered a question about his expectations for the Mustangs last week during his show. That’s after Southern Methodist did well last season by going 24-11 overall (13-7 ACC) before missing out on March Madness as a bubble team because of quality of opponent, going 0-5 against Quad I and 6-5 against Quad II per the Net Rankings.

“Well, look. Andy Enfield did a great job, a great job, in his first year at SMU,” said Rothstein.

“They were the ultimate chalk team because they didn’t really have any good wins, they didn’t really have any bad losses. That’s a byproduct, I think, of the ACC not having a lot of opportunities.”

That makes SMU just the latest team in the state to have interest around them going into next season. Rothstein is even considering a full-on tour at some point before next season with seven quality power teams in Texas.

“I’d love to get to the state of Texas and I’d love to see all these teams practice but I’m just trying to find out if I can squeeze this into a week, ” said Rothstein. “You have to go to Lubbock to see Texas Tech, a Top-10 team with JT Toppin, but then you’ve got to be in Austin, Baylor, Houston, A&M, and then you’d also like to do TCU and SMU. That feels like more than a week. There’s a probably a way you could do it if practice schedules work but, it’s something I’m thinking about.”

SMU tied for their fifth-most wins in school history with the 24 they had in ’24-’25. That represented a successful jump up as a power program after spending just over a decade in the American. However, the wins didn’t have much quality among them, winning many of their games against poor teams both in and out of conference while losing all of their ranked games against Duke, Louisville, and Clemson as well as defeats versus their other top opponents like North Carolina, Mississippi State, and Wake Forest.

That was reflected with them missing the NCAA Tournament even with the winning record overall and in conference play in the ACC. SMU would instead make the NIT as a No. 1 seed, losing by two in the second round to Oklahoma State.

Now, the Mustangs are looking to make another run in trying to, for the first time in eight years, make the NCAA Tournament. They’re trying to do so with a Top-30 portal class, with a trio of Top-350 transfers in Jaron Pierre (Jacksonville State), Corey Washington (Wichita State), and Sam Walters (Michigan), and four commitments for the No. 12 recruiting class in 2025 to pair with returns by leading contributors like in Boopie Miller, Samet Yigitoglu, and BJ Edwards. That, per Rothstein, currently has them projecting for another bid that’d be around the bubble.

“There’s definitely a feeling of optimism around SMU and there’s a hope that SMU could maybe, maybe be competitive for a bubble berth or a bubble opportunity,” said Rothstein.

Enfield did a decent job in his debut with SMU. It’s now on the Mustangs to take another step as a program, after establishing themselves last year, in possibly returning to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2017.