Smith's contract extended

~ He received a three-year deal with a 21 percent annual salary increase.

Southeast Missouri State women's basketball coach B.J. Smith expressed relief and excitement Wednesday after signing a three-year contract extension.

"I'm happy to have this behind us now, and I'm excited that I'm going to continue as the coach here," Smith said. "I hope I'm going to be here for a long time.

"I'm just glad to have it done, and I'm glad we can start worrying about important things like getting recruits signed and continuing to build on last year's success. Our goal is to do really big things here, bigger than what we've already done."

Smith, 41, has led the Redhawks to consecutive 22-win seasons, including a 22-9 record this year that featured a tie for the Redhawks' first Ohio Valley Conference regular-season title, their first OVC tournament title and their first NCAA Division I tournament berth.

In four years at Southeast, Smith has a 79-41 record, including a 51-17 OVC mark. Both figures are the best in the OVC during that span.

"We are delighted to have this issue resolved and to have coach Smith as our head coach for the next three seasons," Southeast athletic director Don Kaverman said in a university release. "His success and ongoing efforts to improve our women's basketball program certainly deserved to be rewarded."

The contract, which runs through April 30, 2009, is for a base salary of $75,000 annually. Smith had been making about $62,000 per year.

In addition, Smith can earn additional money for reaching certain performance goals, including $1,000 for being selected OVC coach of the year, $2,000 for winning the OVC regular-season title, $2,000 for being selected to the postseason Women's NIT and $2,500 for winning the OVC tournament title or otherwise being selected to the NCAA tournament.

Also, Smith would receive $7,500 for advancing to the NCAA field of 32, $15,000 for advancing to the NCAA Sweet 16 and $25,000 for advancing to the NCAA Final Four.

This year, Smith earned an extra $4,000 for winning the OVC regular-season title ($1,500) and OVC tournament title ($2,500).

As was the case in Smith's previous contract and is standard in college coaching contracts, the pact Smith signed Wednesday includes language that states he could be released for NCAA or OVC violations.

That is perhaps particularly timely right now because of an ongoing NCAA and OVC inquiry into possible violations in the women's basketball program.

"Despite the investigation, the athletic department will continue to support coach Smith," Kaverman said. "We have already addressed some of the violations and have taken the necessary corrective actions regarding those infractions."

Smith, whose previous contract was due to expire April 30, said his immediate focus will be on recruiting. The spring signing period began Wednesday.

The Redhawks lost four senior starters and two key senior reserves from this year's team. Smith said Southeast probably would not have signed anybody Wednesday even if the contract extension had been worked out a while ago.

"Just the way it worked out, it really had nothing to do with the contract situation," Smith said. "We'll have recruits coming in this weekend, and probably sign several the next couple of weeks.

"We'll sign four or five at least. We have to replace those big seniors. Some of them we'll replace with returning players, but we also need to bring in some really good players."

Southeast landed one player during the early signing period in November, junior college All-American forward Missy Whitney from Three Rivers Community College in Poplar Bluff, Mo. Whitney is a former all-stater at Charleston High School.