I’ve started to write a few blog posts about Bruce Weber and K-State basketball, oftentimes referred to as Bruceketball, only to delete the posts before posting them publicly because I found my thoughts to be too negative.  I try to be positive in both real life an my online life, but it is definitely difficult at times.  I enjoy following politics, but the negativity really gets to me and I get caught up in it too often.  I also enjoy following sports, but it, too, can become a negative influence and it affects my mood more often than it should.  I really like college basketball.  It’s my favorite sport after college football.  I get excited when my team is winning and get angry and upset when they are losing.

When I found out Bruce Weber was hired as our coach in 2012, I did a “What? Who?” to my buddy who told me.  This was before the hire was announced publicly and he had some inside information.  Weber had just been fired from Illinois after a 17-15 overall record and a 6-12 conference record at Illinois.  He did take the team to the national championship game his first season after taking over for Bill Self, but his teams had gotten progressively worse over the years.  He had some success, but also a lot of mediocre to bad basketball.

We’ve seen a similar roller coaster ride from Bruce while he has been at K-State.  He took Frank Martin’s players to a share of the Big 12 title in his first year before finishing 5th, 6th, 8th, 6th and 4th in the league before sharing the title again last year.  This year the team is off to a horrendous start at 7-9 overall and 0-4 in the league.

It is mind boggling and baffling that Bruce Weber’s teams go through these ups and downs.  The lows are REALLY low.  While I don’t expect K-State to win the league every year, I believe after eight years that the team should be competitive year to year.  I don’t know what it is with Bruce Weber, but he can’t win on a consistent basis and this makes it very frustrating for the fans to watch.  His overall Big 12 conference record currently stands at 69-61 overall and with the way things are trending this season he’ll be right back around .500 overall by March.

Add to that the fact that the Big 12 signed a contract with ESPN Plus to broadcast the games, and a large portion of fans aren’t even watching the games.  Attendance at Bramlage looks sparse at best.

A large portion of the fan base seems okay with this.  As long as Bruce fields a competitive team every four or five years, they are fine with the extreme lows of the other years.  I think K-State basketball deserves better than this.  If a coach has been at a program for eight years, I believe you should be no worse than a .500 record in your conference.  He should be embarrassed how the team is performing this year, as should the administration.  I enjoy college basketball too much to endure watching my team be mediocre to horrible.

Is there a better option out there to coach K-State?  Who knows.  The administration doesn’t want to fire a mediocre coach in order to hire someone who could be worse.  At least that’s what it looks like from the outside.  The memories of the Asbury and Wooldridge years are still too fresh in the minds of many fans who do not want to see those days again.  So instead we have all settled for mediocrity.  I think K-State can do better and the fans deserve better.

Is this too negative?  Not nearly as negative as when I started typing after some of the horrible losses we’ve had to watch this season.  Guess I’ll post this one. 

Till next time….