ST. LOUIS – With Santa Clara’s first NCAA Tournament appearance in 30 years barely 24 hours away, Herb Sendek spent a lot of his Thursday morning media session looking backward.
The Broncos’ longtime head coach, 10 days removed from his 600th win as a head coach, split his news conference mostly between discussing his own team and reminiscing on his time as an assistant under Rick Pitino at Kentucky.
“That four years was just, it was magic,” Sendek said of his time in Lexington. “Big Blue Nation is one of a kind.”
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On Friday, Sendek will try to steal some of that magic, when his No. 10 Santa Clara team chases an upset of the 7-seeded Wildcats.
With the 26-win Broncos enjoying their best season in decades, the most-experienced coach in this weekend’s pod might just be the one poised to deliver the weekend’s biggest upset. His team does not lack for belief in the possibility.
Sendek’s career is a testament to longevity in what has increasingly become a young man’s game.
March 9, 2026; Las Vegas, NV, USA; Santa Clara Broncos head coach Herb Sendek talks in the locker room after defeating against the Saint Mary’s Gaels after the game at Orleans Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-Imagn Images
Of the eight head coaches in St. Louis this weekend, only two — Sendek and Purdue’s Matt Painter — have been at it more than 11 years. Two here, Miami’s Jai Lucas and Tennessee State’s Nolan Smith, brought their teams to March Madness in their first years in their respective jobs.
Sendek’s story covers many more chapters.
Friday will be his 16th Tournament game as a head coach. Santa Clara is the fourth different program he’s brought dancing. Honored this winter as West Coast Conference coach of the year, Sendek has now won that award in four different leagues.
He invokes Pitino and Jim Valvano as comfortably as he talks about the way these Broncos succeed by “staying in the moment, all season long.”
Mostly, he talks like what he is — a coach’s son who never really considered making a living doing anything else.
“My dad was a coach. I have been in gyms since I have been in diapers. Literally,” Sendek said. “Now I look back on that and I realize, he was never too busy or going to be with somebody too important to have me tugging at his pants leg.
“He went out of his way to include me.”
The family business turned for Sendek into a lifetime spent in basketball.
He did not over-reflect on the past Thursday, though Sendek drew his share of knowing smiles when he picked out his “fondest” memory of his time in Lexington.
“I’d better answer that the right way,” he said, “and tell you I met my wife there. …
“Coach Pitino actually played cupid and set my wife and I up, and sure enough, 30-some years later, we’re here. So that would be memory No. 1.”
The memories Sendek spends his time on this weekend will be the ones Santa Clara hopes to make, starting with tipoff at 12:15 p.m. ET Friday.
Seeking their first NCAA tournament win since that Steve Nash-led team defeated Maryland in 1996, the Broncos lean on one of the nation’s most-efficient offenses. They shoot the ball well but rebound it better, perhaps as effectively as any team in the country on a per-possession basis.
That delivered not just 15 conference wins and a berth in the WCC title game, but also multiple nonconference victories over high-major opponents.
It was one of those, a 19-point Nov. 10 win at Xavier, that got Santa Clara believing this season could be something special.
“We went out there and competed, and we played well,” sophomore guard Christian Hammond said Thursday. “I just saw the fire and the hunger this team had.”
The Broncos’ eyes are trained on a bigger prize this weekend.
Sendek has coached too long, stood on these stages too many times, to worry about the conversation around this game. His players reflect that.
Soon, they might deliver for their coach another meaningful mile marker in a career already bursting with them.
“We just believe in us,” senior forward Elijah Mahi said. “We know if we go out there and play hard, like we’ve been playing all year, that we can beat any team out there.”
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY Sports: Herb Sendek has Santa Clara in search of March Madness upset vs Kentucky
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