Why Mark Campbell has what it takes to turn around TCU’s women’s basketball program

If you look at new TCU women’s basketball coach Mark Campbell’s track record, one thing clearly stands out.

Whether it was as a player or as a coach, wherever Campbell has gone immediate —and often times historic — success has followed. As a player, he helped lead Hawaii to the NCAA Tournament in 2002 and is the winningest two-year player in Hawaii’s history.

Afterwards he coached Clackamas Community College to a Northwest Athletic Association of Community Colleges championship and was an assistant at Oregon for seven seasons during the Ducks’ best run in program history. That included a Final Four appearance in 2019.

Then he took over as Sacramento State women’s basketball coach, where he inherited a 3-22 team and only needed two seasons to lead the program to its first NCAA Tournament appearance. Wherever Campbell goes, winning follows.

“I’m one piece, it takes a village to win,” Campbell said. “I’ve just been able to figure out how I can get plugged into each program and how I can contribute and help the program find a way to win. There’s a lot of moving parts that go into it, I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of a bunch of winning programs.”

Campbell will bring that same mentality to Fort Worth. While there isn’t a rush for immediate success, Campbell’s track record suggests the rebuild won’t be lengthy.

“He’s done it at Oregon State, he’s done it at Oregon, he’s been huge parts of those rebuilds,” athletics director Jeremiah Donati said. “Then to take Sac State to their first NCAA Tournament appearance, men’s or women’s, this guy just knows how to build programs.

“He knows what’s going to be required to be successful. He knows how to do it with tremendous resources or few resources. He’s kind of got that magic touch.”

Now Campbell will hope to apply that magic touch to TCU. Despite the program’s recent struggles, Campbell doesn’t view this as a massive rebuilding job. He views the Horned Frogs as a sleeping giant.

“We’re here to build one of the best women’s basketball programs in the country,” Campbell said. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us. But if you’re able to compete for a Big 12 titles year in and year out, that’s going to mean you’re going to be competing for Final Four berths. We’ve got a lot of work to do, but everything’s in place here to be one of those programs.”

Hitting the ground running

After mutually agreeing to part ways with former coach Raegen Pebley, Donati took his time to reflect on what type of coach the program needed to right the ship.

Pebley had three straight 20 win seasons from 2017-20, but the world shutting down due to COVID-19 pandemic in March of 2020 set the program back. The Horned Frogs won a combined 14 games this past two seasons including winning just three Big 12 games.

“It was pretty apparent as it relates to the other schools in the league, there was a drop-off in talent,” Donati said. “We needed to refocus our effort on recruiting and doing a better job in the state of Texas and DFW. That was a big point, getting someone that had a history of recruiting.”

Campbell spent all of his prior coaching career on the West Coast, so the connections to Texas weren’t deep, but Donati was confident that Campbell’s process would translate in a new setting.

Campbell’s success at Oregon was one reason Donati was willing to take a chance. Campbell helped turned the Ducks into a recruiting powerhouse. His recruiting efforts with the Ducks included unanimous national player of the year and WNBA No. 1 draft pick Sabrina Ionescu.

Campbell led the charge to Oregon pulling in the No. 1 recruiting class in 2020 and another top five class in 2016. The 43-year-old has established himself as one of the best recruiters in the country and now is bringing that to TCU.

“This whole thing is about players,” Campbell said. “Sports, pro or college, you’re only as good as your players. For us, recruiting is the lifeblood of our program. I figured that out really quickly in my coaching career. Nobody will outwork our staff on the recruiting trail and you’ve got to find the right kids, high-achieving young women that are also really talented at basketball.”

Campbell’s philosophy on the recruiting trail is simple, yet effective.

“Building relationships,” Campbell said. “Be authentic, be genuine, be real and build trust. Some very talented young ladies have trusted me with their careers and I think I’ve coached 11 WNBA players and all that comes back to the recruiting trail and building trust with them.”

That number will quickly grow to 12 as Campbell has already hit the ground running in terms of adding significant talent to the TCU roster. The biggest acquisition so far has been Oregon transfer Sedona Prince. Prince withdrew her name from the WNBA draft to commit to Campbell, who coached her for two seasons at Oregon.

Prince missed all of last season with an elbow injury, but that hasn’t diminished the excitement of bringing in a player with a winning pedigree.

“It was a special opportunity for her to come home for her last season,” Campbell said. “She’s family. She’s one of the best centers in college basketball, she’s going to anchor the middle. She’s so talented, she has a point guard feel. She’s 6-foot-7, the best comparison I can use right now is Nikola Jokic. She can impact the game in so many ways, she has a rare special IQ.”

Along with Prince, the Horned Frogs have announced the signings of transfer Uva Jovanovic, an All-Big West guard at Cal-State Fullerton and Arizona transfer Madison Conner, who shot 37% of her three-point attempts last season. There’s still more on the way as Campbell has put his recruiting chops to work quickly in less than two months on the job.

“It blew me away how fast he was able to bring in some really good players,” Donati said. “He said right out of the gate he was going to be able to secure talent right away, so it was not a surprise to me the caliber of players he’s signed.”

Making Mark

One person Campbell credits with helping his career the most is Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett. One of the longest tenured coaches in the sport, Campbell was on Bennett’s staff from 2008-10.

The Gaels reached the Sweet 16 in his last season as an assistant. It was only two years, but Campbell learned a lot in his short time there.

“He took me under his wing and showed me the blueprint of college basketball,” Campbell said. “How to run a program from A to Z, so that’s where I really got trained.”

It’s also the place he met David Patrick. Patrick was an assistant under Bennett from 2006-10 and a few years later would end up on the staff at Jamie Dixon at TCU.

After pursuing different professional opportunities in 2010, the men reunited at Sac State where Patrick took over the men’s program while Campbell coached the women’s. They both used the lessons from Saint Mary’s to ascend in the coaching game.

“A lot of it was how we built culture,” Patrick said. “The culture was a huge thing for us starting with the staff and how connected we were. We put a premium on player development, when you’re at a place like that that’s similar to TCU, when you’re trying to beat a Gonzaga or a Kansas, the development of your players is crucial.”

When Patrick met Campbell again in Sacramento he couldn’t help, but notice how much his colleague had grown over the past dozen years.

“He came in as a younger assistant, when you’re the young assistant you try to be everybody’s buddy,” Patrick said. “Coming back around this time he had more command of his team, but still had that same personal relationship with them even though he was the boss. I could see right away just how the ladies that played for him gravitated towards him and his staff.

“He coached them hard, he coached them with tough love and it showed up on the basketball court.”

All those reasons plus the NCAA Tournament appearance was why Patrick was one of the loudest supporters for Campbell to get the job. His recommendation resonated with Donati and was one of the final pieces of confirmation he needed.

“He was a huge advocate for him, there were so many people that wanted to see him get this job,” Donati said.

Now he has it and he’s already making the most of his new opportunity.

“We’ve got a great staff that turned Sac State around pretty quickly. TCU is a spot we expect to turn this program around really quickly,” Campbell said.