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BUFFALO, N.Y. — Kristen Sharkey stands on the Alumni Arena court sideline, conversing with assistant coach Summer Hemphill. It’s a little after 1:10 p.m. on Nov. 7, four days after Buffalo’s season-opening loss to Marshall, and the University at Buffalo’s head coach is watching her team complete a drill. Suddenly, Sharkey’s conversation is interrupted.

“Five!” Sharkey yells out. “Give me five!”

Meg Lucas — an Australian freshman for the Bulls — had just airballed a shot. Normally, that results in a baseline-to-baseline sprint, but Lucas is dealing with a nagging injury.

That lingering ailment, whatever it is, won’t save her. Standards are ironclad here. In lieu of a sprint, Lucas runs to half court, drops down to the blue Bull logo, touches her hands to the hardwood and pushes her chest away from the floor five times. Her teammates continue to shoot around her, minutes away from their own team-wide sprint.

At this moment, Sharkey’s right where she belongs. This arena, furnished with 6,100 blue and white seats, is the stage where she became a dominant player from 2011-2015, twice earning All-Conference honors. It’s also where she began her ascendant coaching career, working as an assistant under Felisha Legette-Jack for seven years. Sharkey only decided to leave it in 2022, joining her former head coach at her alma mater, Syracuse. Now, three years later, it’s Sharkey who’s returned to her personal basketball mecca.

But it’s different this time. She’s been a player here, doing drills at her coach’s direction. She’s been an assistant here, coaching under Legette-Jack’s direction. Now, for the first time in her life, the 33-year-old steps on the Alumni Arena hardwood and holds the proverbial compass, determining the Bulls’ direction.

“You’re acting more like a CEO,” Sharkey said of her new role. “At the end of the day, if we don’t win, I get fired and so do (my assistants). So it’s a big responsibility, and I don’t take it lightly.”

Sharkey might not have always known it, but she was meant to be here. As a teenager at Southern Regional High School (New Jersey), she took one official visit — Buffalo — and committed shortly after.

She didn’t even tell her family. Her father, Pat Sharkey, found out two days later. Pat still believes that she should’ve considered more opportunities out of high school. But when you know, you know, and Sharkey knew.

“There was something about this place. I was like, ‘I need to go there,’” Sharkey said. “Looking back, it’s probably the best decision I ever made, because the way everything has worked out has been incredible.”

Kristen Sharkey instructs the Bulls during a timeout. After interviewing for Buffalo’s head coaching position, Sharkey was selected over several sitting head coaches. Photo by Paul Hokanson | UB Athletics

During her first two years at Buffalo, Sharkey rode the bench under former head coach Linda Hill-MacDonald. But after the 2011-12 season, when Legette-Jack took over, Sharkey became a starter.

The partnership flourished from there. In her three seasons playing for Legette-Jack, Sharkey started 90 of UB’s 94 games. She averaged 12.6 points per game — up from 3.2 as a freshman — and the Bulls went 48-46 in that span, as opposed to 75-137 under Hill-MacDonald’s.

“When Legette-Jack came, it changed the whole mentality,” Pat said. “It only turned around for good when Felisha Legette-Jack showed up.”

After Sharkey’s fifth year, it appeared their partnership had run its course. Thanks to the influence of her high school coach, Kathy Snyder, Sharkey entered college knowing she wanted to coach eventually. Playing under Legette-Jack only intensified that desire.

However, she wasn’t planning on making that transition immediately. After graduating in 2015, Sharkey had two opportunities to play overseas, and she planned on prolonging her playing career as long as possible. Even if she did coach, she never foresaw herself in the collegiate ranks. She figured she’d return home to Manahawkin, New Jersey, and take over for Snyder at Southern Regional.

But her body disagreed. A sophomore-year ACL injury left her with “bad knees,” Pat said, ending her playing hopes. Conveniently, UB’s post coach left just as Sharkey graduated. Suddenly, there was an opening on Legette-Jack’s staff.

One day, Sharkey walked into her old coach’s office dressed in an outfit that was much too formal for a casual visit — as if she was interviewing for something. Legette-Jack knew something was up. She asked her former player what was wrong.

Sharkey first mentioned the opportunity to play in Europe, then revealed the true intentions behind her visit. She didn’t feel done at Buffalo. There was no Mid-American Conference championship yet. Legette-Jack had an open spot, and Sharkey wanted to fill it.

Soon, the 23-year-old was officially a Division I assistant coach.

“Every step that she took, she earned,” Legette-Jack said. “There was nothing given to her. Everything was all earned.”

As an assistant at Buffalo, Sharkey “wore many hats,” said Katie Kolinski, who was UB’s director of basketball operations in 2019.

Before SU’s contest with Fairleigh Dickinson on Nov. 17, 2024, Kristen Sharkey converses with Syracuse wing Shy Hawkins. Sharkey’s interpersonal relationships have helped her evolve into a high-level recruiter. Courtesy of SU Athletics

Aside from working with the Bulls’ post players, Sharkey scouted opponents. She was Buffalo’s main recruiter under Legette-Jack, her mother, Patricia Sharkey, said. When the team hosted recruits, Sharkey organized itineraries, arranged dinners and handled the logistics of each visit, Kolinski added. She was the one who recruited Dyaisha Fair to the Bulls, molding her into the NCAA’s third-highest all-time scorer.

In Sharkey’s seven years on staff, Buffalo went 154-69 and made four trips to the NCAA Tournament — its first appearances in program history. That success propelled Legette-Jack back to Syracuse in 2022.

The Bulls could’ve promoted Sharkey then. She was Buffalo’s longest-tenured assistant coach, and there was no other candidate as in tune with UB’s program.

But the timing wasn’t right. Buffalo focused its search externally, hiring then-USC Upstate head coach Becky Burke, while Sharkey followed her former head coach to SU.

“Sometimes, they say things like, ‘You got to leave home to really appreciate home,’” Buffalo assistant coach Allison Spaschak said. “And I think that was true for (Sharkey).”

Just as she’d done at Buffalo, Sharkey threw everything into her role at Syracuse. She continued running Legette-Jack’s recruiting operations, earned a promotion to associate head coach before the 2024-25 season and helped the Orange to a 56-39 record across her tenure. She barely saw her parents, except around Christmas and for a week each summer.

Last season, Sharkey worked alongside Spaschak — a fellow Southern Regional alum — who’d just become SU’s videographer. She also became Syracuse’s de facto general manager, fundraising for the program by schmoozing with boosters at dinners, Sharkey said. It prepared her for the greater fundraising expectation she’d face at Buffalo, she said, when she inevitably became its head coach.

While the Orange posted a 12-18 record in the 2024-25 campaign, the Bulls blossomed in Burke’s third year, going 30-7 and winning the NIT. Burke departed for Arizona in the offseason, leaving UB’s job vacant again. This time, Sharkey was ready. She called Spaschak to run through her plan.

“I’m going 100% in on this,” Sharkey told her, referring to Buffalo’s opening. “Are you in?”

Kristen Sharkey walks into the JMA Wireless Dome, donning an orange Syracuse quarter zip. In her final season with the Orange, Sharkey served as Felisha Legette-Jack’s associate head coach. Courtesy of SU Athletics

Spaschak didn’t blink. While Spaschak looked at transfer targets, Sharkey presented a detailed plan for the program during her interview process, Buffalo athletic director Mark Alnutt said, standing out from other candidates. He insisted the committee evaluate her without factoring in her legacy at UB, and assess her purely on the merits of her vision.

Alnutt hired her on April 17, a Thursday evening. By Friday morning, she was driving to Buffalo, and at 7:45 a.m., she texted Alnutt to say her staff was fully solidified. It consisted of all the names she’d already mentioned in her interviews.

Once she arrived in Buffalo, Sharkey began hosting recruits on official visits. She and Spaschak joke that they ate 300 wings in a two-week span, all catered from Wingnuts — a local chicken wing restaurant. Fifteen recruits visited UB in that stretch, and 13 of them ultimately committed. At the end of a whirlwind fortnight, she finally had a team.

“(She had) a detailed plan in regards to understanding that she’s gonna take over a roster that had zero,” Alnutt said. “And using her relationships to be able to build a roster.”

Before Syracuse’s season opener last season, Sharkey and Spaschak walked into the locker room together — something they’d dreamed about for years. Sharkey patted Spaschak on the back.

“We freaking did it,” Sharkey told Spaschak.

The pair didn’t realize then, but the real milestone was still ahead. About a year later, Sharkey would walk through Marshall’s campus with Spaschak, reviewing their scouting report before UB’s first game. Sharkey would be at the helm of her alma mater, and Spaschak would be her right-hand woman.

Marshall won that night, but it didn’t matter. Hours before tipoff in Huntington, West Virginia, Spaschak would look at Sharkey and see it: Her boss was ready.

Of course she was. It was exam day — and Sharkey had been studying for a very, very long time.

Published on December 4, 2025 at 12:36 am
Contact Mauricio: mjpalmar@syr.edu | @mpalmarDO