Steve Sarkisian explains what he can learn from Dawn Staley, Dan Hurley's runs in college basketball
The end of the college basketball season can be a motivating time for just about anyone. After all, what better way to crown a champion than a tournament full of single-elimination games to determine who’s most worthy to hoist the title?
College coaches across the country were tuned in, first as South Carolina won the women’s national championship in front of a record TV audience, then again as UConn repeated as back-to-back national champions.
There’s a lesson in both journeys.
“I watched both games. I watched both tournaments, quite frankly,” Texas football coach Steve Sarkisian said. “And I think what coach (Dawn) Staley has done has been obviously very impressive in that she’s assembled talent year after year but she’s got her culture for sure, and it’s in place. She instills it in them. She had a whole new team this year and they went out and won every game. And last year they lose in the semis, they couldn’t get it done. So very impressed with what she’s been able to do.
“And very impressed with what coach (Dan) Hurley has been able to do. I think he lost three or four NBA players off last year’s team.”
Texas finds itself in a similar position as South Carolina did in college basketball a year ago. A juggernaut team that came up a little short in last year’s College Football Playoffs.
Like South Carolina, there will be some retooling on the Texas roster. Much of it has already happened through the transfer portal, where the additions of Isaiah Bond, Silas Bolden and Amari Niblack should give returning quarterback Quinn Ewers an ample array of targets to choose from.
The rest is up to Sarkisian to figure out. So he’s been studying both Final Four runs in college basketball, trying to pull out the common denominators.
“But one thing that is very clear in both of them. I’d say two things,” Sarkisian said. “The first is they coach hard. There’s not for a second, you watch their interaction with their players, where they’re not coaching them hard. And they’re demanding of their players. But you can also feel the love coming from them with their players.
“And two, they’re both very confident and their teams play very confidently because there’s a belief that’s been instilled in them.”
The latter shouldn’t be all that difficult at Texas after the playoff run a year ago. Things will be different this time around, with the field expanding to 12 teams.
If anything, though, that should make playing with that confidence even more important. There will be more games to navigate, all against quality teams. It’ll be more like a run through the college basketball postseason.
“We’re always all striving for that and looking at those great teams that do it at a high, high level,” Sarkisian said. “You can look to what coach (Nick) Saban was able to do at Alabama or what Kirby (Smart) was able to do here with Georgia, from our aspect of it. And there’s a lot of teams that way. I’ve been fortunate to be part of some great teams in that era with Pete Carroll, so it’s not a one-time thing. You’ve got to continually work on the things that are important to you to recreate it year after year after year.”