The Washington State Cougars hired Kyle Smith as their next head basketball coach back on March 27. Enough though he comes from a small school in the West Coast Conference, there has been a lot of public support for WSU’s new head man.

Smith comes in after posting a 63-40 record the San Francisco Dons‘ head coach. His teams achieved at least 20 games in each of his first three seasons; a first in program history. Also, three straight 20-win seasons hadn’t been achieved by USF in the past 37 years.

Smith joins a WSU program that really needs to be built from the ground up. The program just ended the disastrous five-year tenure of Ernie Kent earlier this month. Kent went an abysmal 58-98 with the Cougars.

Despite being a relative unknown in the public eye, he’s received a large groundswell of support within the basketball community. It seems almost daily the WSU Men’s Basketball Twitter account spits out a quote by a notable basketball figure.

Recently, Cleveland Cavaliers General Manager Koby Altman had this to say about Smith.

“Kyle was playing ‘Money Ball’ in college before there was ever such a thing. Wazzu fans will marvel at the improvement of their players and the program from year to year with real tangible data. On top of all of his coaching talents, Kyle is an even better person and family man… It’s a perfect fit.”

In addition to Altman’s comments, a few notable Golden State Warriors coaches shared their thoughts.

Another member of the @warriors staff, assistant coach Mike Brown, had something to say about new head coach Kyle Smith. #GoCougs | @WSUCougars pic.twitter.com/59Wk2ebwwc — WSU Men’s Basketball (@WSUMensHoops) March 30, 2019

Also, former WSU head coach and current Virginia Cavaliers head coach Tony Bennett endorsed Smith. Meanwhile, other WSU coaches like Kelvin Sampson and George Raveling helped Athletic Director Pat Chun select Smith.

Based on all the prominent public endorsements made about coach Smith, the Cougars found the right Xs and Os coach. However, that’s just one part of this job. He will be interesting to see how he tries to reignite fan interest for the program and what type of players he recruits.

While a quick turnaround would be ideal, it should not be the expectation. Chun is certainly aware of that. As a result, he and Smith agreed to a six-year contract worth $1.4 million annually.

Smith is getting a lot of leeway to build the program in any he sees fit. Given the public support for him, that does not sound like a terrible idea.