Apr 1, 2011 By The 2 min read

Virginia Commonwealth men’s basketball coach Shaka Smart has received a tremendous amount of media coverage this week and rightfully so.

?Smart had led the team to the NCAA Division I Final Four. VCU will play Butler in a national semifinal Saturday evening, with the winner to play for the national championship Monday night.

What you may not know yet is that Smart cut his coaching teeth at California University of Pennsylvania.

He was a graduate assistant coach for Cal U. coach Bill Brown during the 1999-200 and 2000-2001 seasons at the Washington County Division II school.

Brown recruited Smart to Division III Kenyon College. When Brown left Kenyon for Cal after Smart’s freshman season, he told Smart he would have a place for him if and when the player wanted to get into coaching.

Smart accepted Brown’s offer after his senior season and worked with him at Cal.

Brown said he saw the future coach in Smart when Smart played in a high school all-star game.

“He was like the pied piper out there,” Brown said of Smart. “He had a very high basketball IQ. He was determined to learn every position on the court. Once he did that, he was able to communicate with everyone on the court.”

After his stint at Cal, Smart took assistant coaching positions at Dayton, Akron, Clemson and Florida. He was named VCU’s head coach before the 2009-10 season.

In reaching this year’s Final Four, Smart’s team has beaten teams from the Pac-10 (Southern Cal), Big East (Georgetown), Big Ten (Purdue), ACC (Florida State) and Big 12 (Kansas).

“I’m very proud of him, but I think the best is yet to come,” Brown said.

Brown made his way to Houston and will witness Smart’s debut in the Final Four first hand.