Darren Rovell Calls For Major College Basketball Coach Firing

There were a lot of big upsets in the First Round of the NCAA Tournament. Ohio State, Purdue, Virginia, Tennessee and BYU were all stunned by double-digit seeds. But there's one head coach that Darren Rovell believes needs to lose his job over his upset.

Taking to Twitter on Sunday morning, Rovell declared that Texas head coach Shaka Smart must be fired immediately. The 3-seeded Longhorns were stunned by 14-seeded Abilene Christian in the final game of the First Round.

"There are very few losses in sports that lead to an immediate firing," Rovell wrote. "Texas losing to Abilene Christian has to be one of them."

Rovell may be one of the bigger voices on social media calling for Smart's dismissal, but he's hardly the only one. Just about every Texas fan is furious with Smart given his lackluster track record in March.

Shaka Smart rose to national prominence in 2011 after a historic Final Four run with lowly VCU. He went 163-56 in six years, making the NCAA Tournament five times while being courted by just about every major program in the country.

Texas won the Shaka Smart sweepstakes in 2015 and reached the NCAA Tournament in his first year. But despite getting a 6-seed they were immediately bounced by 11-seeded Northern Iowa.

The Longhorns were ousted in the First Round in 2018 by Nevada and missed the NCAA Tournament entirely in 2019. Had Smart not led the Longhorns to an NIT title that year, he might have been fired after the season.

Smart led the Longhorns to their first Big 12 Tournament title earlier this month. But the momentum didn't carry into the NCAA Tournament.

Texas may now be at a crossroads with their head coach, and he's running out of people who will defend him.