SANTA CLARA, Calif. – Santa Clara men's basketball has revamped head coach Herb Sendek's coaching staff for the upcoming 2025-26 season. Four staffers have been elevated to new positions while former graduate assistants Mitch Smith and Caine Purnell join the crew in a full-time capacity.

Assistant coaches Jason Ludwig and Ryan Madry have both been elevated to the title of Associate Head Coach. Additionally, Will Burkett and Jackson Gion, who previously served as the team's director of operations and video coordinator, respectively, have been elevated to the role of assistant coaches. Smith will serve as the program's third assistant coach alongside Burkett and Gion.

Four of the five coaches have been on Sendek's staff for the vast majority of his Santa Clara tenure, which is entering its 10^th season in 2025-26. Ludwig, who also worked with Sendek for two seasons at Arizona State, has been with him for all 10 seasons and has been at Santa Clara for 12 years in total - first joining the program as video coordinator and director of operations in 2007-08 and 2008-09, respectively, and returning as an assistant for Sendek's first season in 2016-17.

Madry will be entering his eighth season on the staff after serving as an assistant coach for the previous seven.

A 2017 graduate of Santa Clara, Burkett has been a member of the staff in different capacities since the 2017-18 season. Originally serving as a graduate assistant for two seasons, he spent two years as the program's video coordinator before taking over the role of director of operations for the next four seasons.

Gion also served for two seasons as a graduate student assistant from 2018-19 and 2019-20 before returning to the staff in a full-time capacity in 2021-22 as the program's video coordinator.

Smith just wrapped up his second season as a graduate assistant for the Broncos in 2024-25. Prior to that he spent two seasons as a student manager for the Cal Golden Bears men's basketball program. He graduated from Cal with a bachelor's degree in environmental economics and policy in 2022.

Purnell, who was also a graduate assistant alongside Smith for the past two seasons, will serve as the program's Director of Video and Analytics. A native of Sydney, Australia, he previously served as a basketball operations assistant for the Illawarra Hawks of the Australian National Basketball League, and graduated from Macquarie University in Sydney in 2022.

Both Smith and Purnell recently earned their Master's in Educational Leadership from Santa Clara.

The final member of the coaching staff – the program's director of operations – will be announced at a later date.