Kevin Hovde eager to add a new branch of already successful coaching tree to Columbia as he returns to New York to helm Lions

Kevin Hovde (center) will be taking analytical approach he learned under former boss Kyle Smith back to Columbia. (Photo by Columbia University Athletics)

SAN ANTONIO — Kyle Smith’s nascent coaching tree has blossomed as March has turned to April, with his former assistant, Todd Golden, leading Florida back to the national championship game for the first time in 18 years.

Golden is not the only Smith disciple drawing attention, though. Four of Smith’s other assistants are or will be sitting head coaches by the end of this month, with the latest two—John Andrzejek and Kevin Hovde—taking over at Campbell and Columbia, respectively, later this week after the Gators’ season comes to a close.

Hovde spent five years with Smith at Columbia, serving first as director of basketball operations for the Lions before working his way up the ranks to an assistant coach and staying in Manhattan through the program’s CIT championship run in 2016, before following Smith to San Francisco and then joining Golden at Florida after a year at his alma mater, Richmond. The institutional knowledge Hovde brings back to New York with him will not only prove vital for a program that has yet to have a winning season since that postseason nine years ago, but also to the analytics and data-centric approach he learned from Smith and Golden, and now gets to instill in his own shop.

“We’ve always had a very consistent approach to how we run our program,” Hovde said. “Whether we were at Florida or San Francisco, or back at Columbia, a lot of the same things, we’ll try to do. It really starts for us with just bringing in guys with great attitudes, great work ethics, and guys that really want to be at Columbia. That’s what I’m going to go back to try to do. I’m really excited because I think there are some guys in the program now that have those characteristics, so hopefully we can hit the ground running.”

“In between, (I’ve been) making calls and trying to do my best to get relationships with the guys in the program and their families, just so they can get to know me. I did get up to Columbia for a day to be able to meet the team and meet the guys in person, which I think was really valuable.”

Hovde will likely need to replace all five starters next season, as Geronimo Rubio De La Rosa graduates in May and the other four—Zine Eddine Bedri, Avery Brown, Kenny Noland and Blair Thompson—all entered the transfer portal following former coach Jim Engles’ resignation last month. The portal is markedly different in the Ivy League compared to most other conferences, as athletic scholarships are not offered and name, image and likeness compensation is nonexistent due to the conference opting out of the House settlement. Still, Hovde is prepared to navigate college basketball’s equivalent of what has been termed in NASCAR as “silly season,” the time of year in which players will be on the move much like drivers and teams are in that sport.

“It is different, but I love that,” he said. “Obviously the basketball piece is the most important thing to me, but I think attracting really high-achieving guys that want to be part of a great basketball program but also get an incredible education and be a part of an amazing alumni network, all those things are really important. Bringing in guys that kind of want both is just essential to us building the program we want, and again, it’s something I’m really excited about.”

Like all of Smith’s other assistant coaches, Hovde will be reliant on the analytics-fueled approach that has gotten Florida to the precipice of a national championship and launched Columbia’s success in the early 2010s. The usage of data and numbers goes beyond the basics in the Smith tree, and will be integral in both player evaluation and on-court execution.

“The heart and soul of it is called our hustle stats,” Hovde explained. “Stats that are internal to our program that we track in practice and at games. That’s really important to us. We use it as a player development tool, we use it to decide who plays minutes, and then externally, we’ll use analytics in every part of the program. As far as recruiting, paying attention to the AAU stats, FIBA stats, guys bringing in transfers are going to have stats in college. It’s really just a data-driven way to make decisions that started with Kyle at Columbia, and we’ve obviously taken it everywhere we’ve gone.”

Columbia is still seven months away from any live game action, but the first thing Hovde is looking for as he shapes his new endeavor is an identity. It’s not easy to wear two hats in college basketball, much less when one is being donned in a national championship game, but the 36-year-old still has a vision for what he wants.

“Tough and gritty,” he said of how he hopes Columbia would play under his watch. “I would say that’s the most important thing. The biggest thing for me is consistency across all parts of the program, so when I think about the program and what I want it to look like, we’re going to be very consistent in what we work on. Our style of play will be very consistent year to year, and just in every part of the program, that consistency is really key in raising the bar.”