Texas Basketball: Nets assistant Royal Ivey a top candidate for HC?

Taking center stage on the Forty Acres of late is the early stages of the coaching search for the Texas basketball program to find a replacement for the now former head coach Shaka Smart. Texas saw Smart bolt from Austin to take the head coaching job with the Marquette Golden Eagles back on March 26.

That came after Smart and the three-seed Longhorns fell short in the Round of 64 in the NCAA Tournament two weekends ago at the hands of the 14-seed Abilene Christian Wildcats and upset-minded head coach Joe Golding. The loss to ACU came by just a one-point margin on last-second free throws from junior big man Joe Pleasant, back on March 20.

Texas saw Smart register a postseason record of 0-3 during his six years as the program’s head coach. And those three losses came at the hands of the seven-seed Nevada Wolfpack, 11-seed Northern Iowa Panthers, and 14-seed ACU.

Smart and the Longhorns would finish up their 2020-21 campaign with a record of 19-8 (11-6 Big 12) following the early exit in March Madness. They had a mostly successful regular season and won the Big 12 Tournament crown for the first time in program history, though. But with Smart out of the head coaching gig on the Forty Acres, who could Texas look to next?

Royal Ivey emerging as a top coaching candidate for Texas basketball

There’s only a handful of coaching candidates who have really risen to the forefront of late for the Longhorns. Still, in the early stages of the coaching search at this point in time, Texas has now reportedly (per ESPN’s Ramona Shelburne) interviewed Brooklyn Nets assistant coach Royal Ivey for the head coaching job.

Ivey is a former guard for the Longhorns from the early 2000s. And he’s risen up the NBA assistant coaching ranks pretty fast in recent years. Most of his fast rise up the NBA coaching ranks came within the last decade with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He was an assistant with the G-League’s Oklahoma City Blue in 2014-15 to kick off his run in the coaching ranks in the pros.

And then Ivey was promoted to an assistant coaching role with the Thunder in the NBA ahead of the 2015-16 season. He would hold a spot on the Thunder coaching staff until he was hired to become an assistant coach with the New York Knicks during the 2018 offseason.

Last but not least, Ivey got hired to be an assistant on staff with the two-time MVP and former Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash (now as head coach in Brooklyn). The Nets could be the NBA Title favorites out of the Eastern Conference this year.

During his time on the Forty Acres in the early 2000s, Ivey played under the direction of former head coach Rick Barnes (now in the same role with the Tennessee Volunteers).

Former Longhorns star forward Kevin Durant even gave the endorsement for Ivey to be the next Texas head coach following Smart’s departure.

It appears now that two of the front runners to become the next Texas head coach in the early stages of this candidate search are Ivey and the Texas Tech Red Raiders head coach Chris Beard. Texas could have a few others in the mix including Iona head coach Rick Pitino, Oregon head coach Dana Altman, and Oklahoma State head coach Mike Boynton, among many others.

Ivey and the Nets currently hold a record of