Thoughts on K-State Basketball

Thoughts on K-State Basketball

I heard Mike DeCourcy interviewed on SportsRadio 810 on Friday morning. He talked about Pitt letting Jamie Dixon go a couple years ago and the fact that Pitt basketball failed to win a game in conference this year.  The point of his comments was “watch what you wish for, you might just get it.”  DeCourcy and a bunch of national broadcaster types like Fran Fraschilla and these local MU and KU sports guys think K-State should be thrilled to death with Bruce Weber. They are quite condescending when talking about it, to be honest. It’s like they’re all saying “know your place, K-State. And stay there.” All I want is a better program than a .500 team, which is what we have now. 

If 8-10 in this conference gets you in the tournament, that should be the BARE MINIMUM expectation, even in a rebuilding year. So my expectation for K-State basketball is making the tournament every year. Just like you should make a bowl game in football EVERY YEAR! Why? Because you can schedule your way to three wins and go 3-6 in your conference and still make a Bowl Game! It’s a ridiculous system that I believe is only in place for coach job security. 

Back to basketball, why should we be happy with a .500 level, mediocre basketball program? We can’t do better? Why not? Remember when Dean Smith retired as North Carolina basketball coach? Bill Guthridge replaced him and wasn’t as good. Then Matt Doherty replaced Guthridge. In three seasons, Doherty was 53-43 overall and 23-25 in conference. If we were to listen to all these pundits, North Carolina should have been THRILLED with Matt Doherty! But North Carolina decided that wasn’t good enough and they kept trying to get Roy Williams and he finally decided to come back. I know North Carolina is a “blue blood,” but the point is that they weren’t happy with a .500 coach. They wanted better and they got it. Now Roy has them in contention for a National Championship every year and has won two. I just don’t understand why we should be happy with this. Do you think we are going to make a run to the final four? No way! No way in hell next year, either! 

I understand that it is hard to find a good coach, but we can and should strive to find a guy better than Bruce Weber. We are a month out from losing by 38 points to West Virginia, which is the largest margin of loss in the history of the Big 12! It seems everyone has already forgotten about that. He also had a 30 point loss last season! The inconsistency and mediocrity of this program is maddening to me. I think what we have in Bruce Weber should be the minimum expectation we have for our basketball program and we should strive to be better.  Let’s not be happy with mediocrity.

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