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While Larry Brown gets a lot of the credit for SMU basketball’s resurgence, and rightfully so, there is another man on the Mustangs’ sideline who deserves just as much merit for his contribution to rebuilding a once destitute SMU basketball program.

Tim Jankovich, the Mustangs associate head coach — thought of as the de facto successor to the 75-year-old Brown — is the highest paid assistant coach in division one college basketball. Again, deservedly so. Jank, as he is affectionately referred to by the Mustangs’ fan base, has both brought his own influence to the program, and learned under the tutelage of the veteran Brown.

Fans will remember Jankovich as the man who patrolled the bench in the early goings of this season, while Brown served his nine game NCAA imposed suspension. Jank won all nine games he coached, six of them by double digits, including SMU’s biggest win of the season — a 82-58 dismantling of the Michigan Wolverines in Moody Coliseum.

Under the leadership of Jankovich, the Mustangs set in motion the start of their season, which saw them win 18 straight, making national headlines along the way. Few assistant coaches in the country would be able to motivate their team to do that, especially with a NCAA tournament ban looming over their head.

However, Jankovich’s biggest contribution to the SMU program has been from a recruiting standpoint, as he brought in perhaps the greatest basketball player in SMU history to the program.

http://www.todaysu.com/aac-today/smu-mu ... s-success/

That's right.

Amen about the contributions of Jank to the SMU program. I like every thing I
see about him. He is intelligent, he is humble, he is humorous, and he has a
way with people that most other people don't have. If and when Larry decides
to leave, Jank will become a great coach. I hope he will love Moody Magic, SMU,
and Dallas enough that he won't even think of leaving.

I am disappointed in our loss tonight, but we played a terrible game and credit Houston
for playing a great second half. I still thought one of those 3s at the end of the game
would go in and we'd win in overtime. I hope we can still reach our goals of winning
the AAC conference and going undefeated at home.

I think Nic waited a little too long to take over the game tonight. He kept being the
playmaker and not the shooter. Of course Houston was trying their best not to give
him any room. In another thread on this board a few were saying that Tolbert was in
slump. Let's hope he hit bottom tonight. Give him A for effort but this had to be his
worst game of the season. Of course there is more blame to go around, but I'll stop
with that. Come back strong Mustangs.

Jank absolutely deserves some credit.

But in our defense, he IS the highest paid assistant in the country and has the job to lose if LB leaves. Can't give him much more credit than that.

Let's just hope he wants to take over this program because others are going to come calling for him to fill head coaching vacancies

Charleston Pony wrote:Let's just hope he wants to take over this program because others are going to come calling for him to fill head coaching vacancies

yep, like they already have

SMU and Jank will do well for years. LB is a teacher and Jank is learning all he can... and then he has his own information to add to that. Jank is young, motivated and .... he gets to live in Dallas, Texas with a ton of great things for he and his family to do.
Treat him right and graduate kids.... We all win.

As Hoopmanx said weren't we suppose to win those games? We were not the underdog in any of those games.

Rebel10 wrote:As Hoopmanx said weren't we suppose to win those games? We were not the underdog in any of those games.

Did Vegas know who was coaching when they set the lines for those games? Would the lines have been the same if Donald Duck had been coaching instead of Jank?

The author of the article is a friend of mine and SMU alum. He will occasionally have articles published on the TodaysU website and a lot of them are SMU athletics related. Check out his articles, he has some good view points on the program