Y’all probably remember Dunk City. If not, let’s zoom through this in a few sentences.
In 2013, tiny Florida Gulf Coast—the pride of Fort Myers, Florida, recently transitioned from Division II—won the ASUN for the first time, just two years after becoming a full-fledged Division I institution. They then advanced to the Sweet 16—as the No. 15 seed, Saint Peter’s before Saint Peter’s was cool—by toppling Georgetown and San Diego State on the strength of an acrobatic style featuring myriad dunks, from all over the court. It can be argued that the de-pantsing the Eagles gave Georgetown was brutal enough that the Hoyas still haven’t recovered; in fact, I will make that argument right now.
Shoo-buddy those were fun times.
Andy Enfield is the guy who coached Florida Gulf Coast during that run; his wife is model Amanda Enfield (nee’ Marcum), which was the most interesting thing about him prior to that tournament run and probably remains top-three. Enfield parlayed that success into the USC job (the real one, in California, sorry Palmetto Staters) and, after a rough first couple of years, he appears to have hit his stride of late and has molded the Trojans into a regular 20-win squad that can be a force in the NCAA Tournament if the bracket falls a certain way (see 2021, when they made an Elite Eight run that included a 34-point thrashing of Kansas).
Anyway. That Andy Enfield.
In his capacity as head coach of a high-major, Enfield has done his former team the sort of solid that coaches at high-majors often do for their former low- to mid-major programs: he’s invited them out to LA for a paycheck and a loss. If you’re unfamiliar with the economics of college basketball buy games, rest assured they’re nowhere near as lucrative as their seven-figure football counterparts but are no less vital to sustaining a mid-major program. It can be difficult when a mid-major becomes “too good” for this very reason; it takes a program with some balls to invite Liberty, Drake, Belmont and other established mid-major powers to town, give them a check and then hope they don’t embarrass you in front of the home faithful. Twentieth-ranked Alabama, which hosts Liberty on Friday, might find this out the hard way.