I've become convinced that the toughest opponent on any major college basketball coach's schedule isn't UNC, OSU, or UCLA. It's ESPN, especially the nightly SportsCenter show. It's the only TV program that has demonstrably altered the way a game is played and coached.
Think about it.
Of all the blue-chip recruits and Division I players in the nation, I'll bet the ratio of those watching SportsCenter to, say, studying in the library is roughly 99 to 1 – and maybe that's too low. Every one of them wants to do something spectacular enough to make the nightly highlights segment.
Since the only sure ways to make SportsCenter are (a) a spectacular dunk or (b) an outrageous night of three-point shooting, that's what players concentrate on doing. Nobody cares much about free-throw shooting, setting picks, or blocking out because SportsCenter puts no value on those blue-collar jobs.
So what's a kid to do when given the choice of doing something SportsCenter-worthy or making the extra pass? Inevitably, his ego will win out.
Consider, for example, UK freshman Eric Bledsoe. Of all the good things he did in the opener against Morehead, what made SportsCenter? Not one of his free throws or crisp passes. It was the play where he just threw up a blind shot – somewhere Adolph Rupp was screaming – and the ball happened to drop in.
Interestingly, the most colorful and exciting era of college hoops was the period from, oh, 1957 through 1975. First came the players – I call them "originals" – who defined positions as we know them today: Oscar Robertson at point guard, Jerry West at shooting guard, Elgin Baylor at small forward, and Wilt Chamberlain (offense) and Bill Russell (defense) at center.
(I'm not sure whom I would identify as the father of all power forwards, which I definite as a tall rebounder and defender who can play away from basket on offense, but it might have been Elvin Hayes of Houston).
This era segued into the high-scoring era of the late '60s and early '70s. Never again will we see scoring machines like Pete Maravich of LSU, Dan Issel of Kentucky, Austin Carr of Notre Dame, Rick Mount of Purdue, James "Fly" Williams of Austin Peay and Calvin Murphy of Niagara – and their entertaining style of high-octane ball was made for TV.
Sadly, the high-scoring era gave way to the Coaching Control-Freak Era, in which we still live. Most of the credit – or blame, depending on your point of view – goes to Dean Smith of North Carolina and Bob Knight of Indiana. By emphasizing defense, they de-emphasized scoring and individual play.
From the mid-1960s through the mid-'80s, a noted exception to the Control-Freak School was Guy V. Lewis of Houston. His philosophy was simple: He recruited great athletes and let them play. His Phi Slamma Jamma team of 1983 deserves to be remembered as one of the most athletically-gifted teams ever instead of the one that got stunned by N.C. State in the biggest upset in Final Four history.
Back then Lewis was denigrated as a coach who did little more than roll out the balls at practice. Today I believe he deserves to be known as the father of the "Dribble Drive" that is currently all the rage at UNC, Memphis, UK and other places capable of recruiting the athletes most likely to make SportsCenter.
As I understand it, the "Dribble Drive" is the sort of offense that Smith, Knight and their ilk always have loathed. It depends less on team basketball and more on individual skill. Essentially, it involves clearing out a side, letting somebody go one-on-one, putting the ball on the glass, and depending on the fact that your athletes are bigger, stronger, and more talented than the other guy's athletes.
So besides forcing us to look at Guy V. Lewis with fresh perspective, it moves us back toward the days of Maravich, Issel, et al. And this is a good thing for the ticket-buying and TV-viewing public, although not for those coaches who still believe that the college game revolves around them, not the players, and who fight the SportsCenter mentality.
When I look at the coaching landscape, I can make the argument that most of the best coaching is being done at places like Butler, Purdue, Gonzaga, and Miami of Ohio. They can't get the John Walls of the basketball world, so they have to make do with players who don't have the athletic skills to seriously dream of making SportsCenter on a regular basis.
But the thing is, the players at those schools (and I will not accept the term “mid-major” until the term “lower-major” also comes into usage) can be taught to master the fundamentals and play basketball the way it was meant to be – a team game where blocking out, setting picks, etc., and essential to success.
This isn't to knock the coaches at the marquee programs. But let's face it: They make the really big bucks because of their recruiting ability as much, if not more than, their coaching ability. Their problem, as coaches, is how to deal with the five-star recruits once they get them.
Calipari has gotten the top point guard from the last three recruiting classes – Derrick Rose, Tyreke Evans, and the aforementioned Wall. They are one-and-done guys, precocious talents who came to college only because they were too young to go directly to the NBA. They major in basketball practice. They work hard to get on SportsCenter because that's their equivalent of an A in the classroom.
When you get this kind of player, you have to play the “Dribble Drive,” don't you? Sure, you do, or they'll go elsewhere. Try to teach them John Wooden's high-post offense and they'll laugh in your face. Talk to them about The Wizard's “Pyramid of Success” and they'll dial Worldwide Wes on their cells to give him a good chuckle.
When Knight went to work for ESPN last season, I told him that if he really wanted to do the coaching profession a favor, he would force the people who run SportsCenter to forget about dunks and three-point shooting for just one night – a night on which they would run clips of the top 10 picks or the top 10 blockouts or the top 10 free-throw shooters.
If SportsCenter would celebrate those lunch-pail parts of the game, perhaps the players would begin to work on those skills as much as on their dunking or long-range shooting. Probably not, but you get the point, right?
I love spectacular plays as much as the next fan, but I like to see them done within a team context. The great thing about players like Robertson, West, and Baylor was that they put up big numbers, but also were the most unselfish and fundamentally sound players on their teams.
At least now we know that Guy V. Lewis was ahead of his time. Is SportsCenter had existed during his career, Houston would get more SportsCenter time than Dicky V. and The Digger put together. Heck, thanks to the advent of the “Dribble Drive,” I think it's time we revisited the question of whether he belongs in the Basketball Hall of Fame.
I remember a conversation with a younger college kid soon after ESPN launched. He was going on and on about how they should have a half hour weekly show with just the best dunks from that 7 days. I thought he was nuts. "Who'd watch that," I asked. Shows how much I know.
I've never paid much attention to the basketball recruiting services, which I consider to be little more than a scam.
Anybody who knows anything about basketball always can pick out the really good prospects. When it comes to evaluating the others, I don't trust anybody who's egotistical enough to tell me he can really rate a bunch of players with any degree of accuracy.
Unfortunately, the much-reviled “mainstream media” has given the recruiting services credibility they don't deserve, because it's easier for lazy reporters to use them as sources instead of doing their own research and checking. It's a sweet deal for both sides – the reporter gets quotes, the recruiting “guru” gets credibility.
For coaches, the services are a double-edged sword. The coaches can't ignore them, yet they also must be careful about buying into them because they're going to get all the heat if a highly-rated recruit turns out to be grossly overrated.
They're also going to get heat if they don't go after highly-rated players for non-basketball reasons they can't discuss. A coach can't say, “Yeah, Demarquesno is a great player, but he also can't spell 'cat' and he wants to be a bank robber if he can't make it in the NBA.”
Tubby Smith, bless his heart, didn't put much store by the recruiting services during his years at the University of Kentucky. He refused to recruit “one-and-done” prospects on the grounds that it undermined the principle of academic integrity. He refused to deal with smarmy agents such as the notorious “Worldwide Wes.” He looked at a player's character and work ethic harder than his vertical leap and quickness.
Which, of course, is why Tubby is at Minnesota today and John Calipari is at UK. Both coaches are good fits at where they are because their ways of doing business are in tune with the values of their fan bases. Calipari will go after – and get – many of the players that Smith had no interest in recruiting.
I thought the recruiting hype had gotten about as big as it could get back when Ron Mercer and Damon Bailey were coming out of high school. That was in the late 1980s and early-to-mid-90s. But I was wrong. The internet and all its component parts – message boards, chat rooms, Tweets, etc. – was only beginning to evolve into the monster we know and love (?) today.
Now the hype is absolutely, positively off the charts. As Exhibit A, I offer the preseason chatter about UK's freshman class, rated tops in the nation, and the chances that the Wildcats would (a) make the Final Four, (b) win the national title, and (c) go unbeaten. I've never seen anything quite like it, so imagine my surprise when I actually saw these players on the floor and discovered their warmups didn't come attached with Superman capes.
This just in from Rupp Arena: UK 72, Miami of Ohio 70.
The Cats trailed by 18 at home in the first half against an unranked team that fired the three like Rick Pitino's early teams in Lexington. They needed a buzzer-beater by all-world freshman guard John Wall to pull it out. Welcome to the real world, hypemeisters.
This isn't to say that the recruiting services were wrong. Not at all. It's just that I never form an opinion about a player until I actually watch him play. Sometimes I think the recruiting services were pretty much on the money. But many times, I see something more -- or less -- than what the gurus see.
For example, where they look at UK's DeMarcus Cousins and see a 2010 lottery pick, I see a lazy kid who's a long way from understanding how hard he has to work to reach his potential. He'll either respond to the challenge or Calipari will get blamed for doing a bad job with him. Nobody will suggest that maybe, just maybe, the recruiting services overrated him.
Another thing I don't like about the recruiting services – and most coaches, for that matter – is their insistence on fitting every player into one of the five slots on the floor. If a player is told early on that he's a “2,” or shooting guard, he tends to work on the skills for that position only instead of developing his overall game.
It didn't used to be that way. At a recent function, I walked into a conversation between Vernon Hatton and Adrian “Odie” Smith, the starting guards on UK's 1958 NCAA championship team.
“OK,” I said, “which one of you was the point guard?”
They looked at each other with puzzled expressions. Finally Hatton said, “We were just guards. Period. We both could bring the ball up the floor and start the offense. We both could shoot from outside and drive.”
It should be the same way today with UK's star freshmen, John Wall and Keith Bledsoe. They should both be just guards, interchangeable because both have all-around games.
Yet both have been so indoctrinated with a point-guard mentality that either will have trouble adjusting to a “2” guard mentality. Perhaps they will learn to play together. But it's instructive that Bledsoe, who thrived in the point guard's role in the opener against Morehead, disappeared against Miami of Ohio when the ball was taken out of his hands and given to Wall.
Likewise, both Cousins and Daniel Orton are accustomed to being the biggest men on the floor. In college, it will be different. Both will have to learn to master different skill sets – the same as, say, Samardo Samuels and Terrence Jennings have done (and are doing) at Louisville.
Don't misunderstand, please. I'm impressed with UK's raw young talent and am looking forward to watching Calipari mold them into an outstanding team. But right now they're far from shoo-ins to beat North Carolina on Dec. 5 at home, Indiana on Dec. 12 in Bloomington, and U of L on Jan. 5 in Rupp Arena.
Each of those three teams have talented players who weren't hyped nearly as much as UK's freshmen. And trust me, the recruiting services don't mean squat once the players get into college. Then it's a matter of whether lazy players can learn to work hard, of whether high school stars can accept roles, of whether selfish players can learn to sacrifice, of whether big-headed players can accept coaching.
So let's not punch UK's ticket to Indianapolis just yet. In fact, let's not just automatically assume that the Wildcats will win the championship of the Bermuda Triangle (Bloomington, Louisville, and Lexington).
At IU, Coach Tom Crean has some exciting young talent that didn't come to come to college burdened with too much hype. And, well, anybody who underestimates the guy at U of L is a fool.
Oh, yeah. I see that U of L has received a commitment from Russell Smith, a point guard from Brooklyn. The story in the Courier-Journal identified him as being “rated a three-star prospect by Rivals.com.” Whatever that means. Who cares? It's enough for me that Rick Pitino thinks he can play for him. Period.
"Keith" Bledsoe? Wait, did you get our team players names' from those same recruiting "gurus"?
:) I kid.
It's a fabulous time to be a KY fan... but I agree and hate that some players will only come for a year. Then again, I've come across a world of success and could honestly not finish school too... if you were told you'd be paid millions for a talent that you didn't NEED to learn, but innately had, would you still go to school? Hmm...
Course, as I say that, I'm also finishing my degree... gotta always have something to come home to when it's all said and done!
At the time I met Turner Gill in 1995, he was the quarterbacks coach at Nebraska, then one of the nation's premier programs. He was in Louisville with Tommie Frazier, the Nebraska QB who had been selected as the winner of the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, given to the nation's top senior signal-caller.
We talked a little about the 1984 Orange Bowl, the biggest disappointment of Gill's Nebraska playing career. With Gill running the show, the Cornhuskers came into the game unbeaten and ballyhooed as one of the greatest teams ever. But all that went up in smoke when Coach Howard Schnellenberger's Miami Hurricanes made a late two-point conversion to snatch away the national title.
Gill impressed me that evening, and not just because he looked sharp in a tux. He had an engaging personality, a winning smile, and a commanding presence. I remember thinking that Frazier was lucky to have a mentor who could teach him about more than the quarterback option. Gill was a winner, and I filed away his name for future reference.
Last year, when he shocked the football world by taking previously unknown Buffalo to the Mid-American Conference championship and a bowl game, Gill emerged as a hot coaching property. He was runner-up for the Syracuse job and the apparent front-runner at Auburn until they got cold feet on the Plains and hired Gene Chizik from Iowa State, where he had compiled an underwhelming 5-19 record.
What did Chizik have over Gill?
Well, Auburn alum Charles Barkley, the erstwhile “Round Mound of Rebound,” bluntly said it all came down to race. It wasn't so much that Gill was African-American, Barkley said, but that he was married to a white woman.
This season Buffalo has slipped a notch – the Bulls' record is 3-5 – but Gill remains a guy who will be on the short list of several coaching search committees. I think he'll go somewhere – and I'd love it if that turned out to be Louisville.
At this point, it's a foregone conclusion that Tom Jurich, the university's vice-president for athletics, will be forced to replace his friend Steve Kragthorpe after the season. It will be difficult for Jurich, but he didn't need the “Krag Out” in the last home game – half the seats were empty at kickoff – to know that Kragthorpe has to go.
Just why Kragthorpe never caught on with U of L's fan base is mystifying to Jurich. One reason may be that when he came in, the fans were still angry at Bobby Petrino for leaving. Another might be that Kragthorpe is so clean-cut and straight-arrow that he comes off as bland.
Most likely, however, is the fact that Kragthorpe never really demonstrated the offensive genius that made him a respected NFL coordinator and one of the most respected teachers in the football world. When Urban Meyer wants to talk offense, guess who he calls? That's right. Steve Kragthorpe.
To his credit, Jurich has stood resolutely behind Kragthorpe and given him every opportunity to prove he deserves to stay on for at least another year. Unfortunately, however, Kragthorpe hasn't met the challenge. The Cards are 3-6 heading into Saturday's home game against Syracuse. There simply have been far more dumb mistakes and missed chances than glimmers of hope.
The Kragthorpe bashers seem to be confident that Jurich will be able to bring in a big-name replacement such as, oh, Jon Gruden, just to mention a name. But that's not likely to happen. Despite the great strides made by U of L football in the last 20 years, it's still not a destination job for coaches.
In other words, there's no good reason for Mike Leach to leave Texas Tech, Brian Kelly to leave Cincinnati, or Danny Hope to leave Purdue. The head coach at Idaho probably wouldn't even talk to Jurich because he holds Kragthorpe in high regard. The more you look at it, the tougher the task becomes.
But Turner Gill is somebody who might be interested. The U of L job definitely would be a step up the ladder from Buffalo. He knows how coaches in every sport love to work for Jurich. And it's much easier to replace an unpopular, unsuccessful coach than to succeed a winner.
Personally, I'd much prefer Gill to either Phillip Fulmer or Tommy Tuberville, a couple of Southeastern Conference retreads who have been mentioned as possibilities. Gill is younger and more sophisticated. He's better suited for an urban university than a good ol' boy from the South.
I hope Louisville, as a city, is evolved enough that nobody would hold Ron Cooper against him. All they have in common is that both are African-Americans. Cooper never had the class or people skills that I believe Gill possesses.
Gill's football pedigree is impeccable. He spurned scholarship offers from Oklahoma and Texas for the opportunity to become Nebraska's first African-American quarterback. A starter for three years, he guided the Huskers to the Orange Bowl twice.
After playing football in Canada and minor-league baseball in the U.S. – Jurich just loves baseball – Gill joined the staff at his alma mater. During his 13 years as a Husker assistant, Nebraska won three national titles and Gill coached one Heisman winner (Eric Crouch, 2001) and a runner-up (Frazier).
I think Gill would be a terrific recruiter at U of L. He has the background and the ability to relate to prospects from all levels of society. And from what I know of him, he won't tolerate a lot of disciplinary cases.
Schnellenberger wrenched a national title from Gill's grasp. It would be a nice twist of fate if, all these years later, Gill ended up coaching at one of the places that Schnellenberger put on the national map.
The company line seems to be that Kragthorpe is well regarded among the coaching fraternity around the country. Plausible, one supposes, though he's sure done nothing to engender such a rep. He may have some sense about offensive football theoretically. But it has been obvious from the very beginning of his tenure at Louisville that he can neither install his "knowledge" in a practical fashion, nor coach up his players. Turner Gill would certainly be a reasonable choice for coach. As a long time fan, I'd be proud.
I think that UofL is definitely a destination for a good coach that wants to take the next step in his career. There is just something about 'ole Kraggy that the players and coaches are not responding to. I think anyone else with a different bedside manner would get more out of this team.
Without Hill, the Jags struggled to a 16-14 record last season. But then they went overseas again, taking 20,000 pairs of shoes to Nigeria even though Hunter couldn't go with them. Laid up by surgery for a herniated disc, the coach nevertheless worked the phones from his bed, trying to get more shoes and enlist more coaches in the cause. He also did some serious soul-searching. The publicity from the shoes, along with his record in a tough situation, had increased his coaching stock to the point that IUPUI fans were worried about keeping him.
“For six weeks I had the time to think about my quality of life,” he said. “Sometimes we as coaches think that money is everything. But it's not. Coaching is what I do, but it's not what I am. There are a lot of places where I wouldn't be allowed to do the shoes thing because it takes up so much time, but IUPUI lets me do it. So my quality of life is terrific. I live in what I consider to be the best city in America and get to do what I believe God wants me to do. I'm supposed to be here. I'm very comfortable.”
But also very busy. Hunter concedes that his passion for the shoes program has grown to the point that it now amounts to a second full-time job. He's on the phone constantly, encouraging his fellow coaches to take shoes with them whenever they go overseas. Last August, the Bowling Green women's team, and the Bethune-Cookman men's team took shoes with them when they visited Central America.
The most important game on IUPUI's schedule is Oral Roberts on Jan. 17 at Conseco. That's the day that Hunter will coach barefoot again to dramatize the Samaritans Feet crusade and to honor Dr. King. He's been talking to ESPN about doing the game live and to the National Basketball Coaches Association about getting its endorsement. He hopes that at least half of all D-I coaches will work barefoot that day, including the coaches at IU, Purdue, and Butler. They won't play him, but maybe they'll join him.
Hunter believes his involvement with Samaritans Feet has made him a better teacher and given his players a perspective on life that's more important than anything they'll learn on the court.
“We take things for granted in this country,” Hunter said. “We're spoiled. Our kids want to have this particular brand or that particular brand. I've taken my team to places where kids come up to me and pray for a meal. It's been great for our kids and it's has brought them closer together. It's inspiring to see young people do things not only for the city and the institution, but for the world.”
Who would have thought that a coach from a curiously-named, easily-ignored school in Indiana could make such a difference? All told, more than two million shoes have been donated and distributed since Hunter first coached barefoot – and he wants the number to grow to five million by the end of this season.
Oh, yeah. There's also his other job. His day job, if you will. He also wants his Jaguars to be back in the hunt for the Summit championship and the program's second NCAA trip. The Jags return seven of last season's top eight scorers, led by forward Robert Glenn, whose 13.9 scoring average made him the Summit's “Newcomer of the Year.” Hunter also is excited about freshman Greg Rice, one of the best high school point guards in Indiana last season.
Whatever happens on the court, however, the nation will be watching the coach who not only talks the talk but walks the walk – literally and barefoot, at that. Without even thinking about it, Hunter has enhanced his profession's reputation by proving that even in these cynical, selfish times, there is, indeed, more to college basketball than winning games and making money and moving up the ladder.
Whenever he gets tired, he thinks about how he felt when he looked into the wide eyes of a barefoot urchin in Peru and told him he had run out of shoes. The memory haunts him in his dreams, but it's balanced by the encouragement he gets from his family, friends, colleagues, and, sometimes, unlikely sources.
“I do every speaking engagement I can,” Hunter says. “At one, there was this raggedy old guy in a wheelchair. As I was on the way out, he called me over and took off these old running shoes he had on. He said, 'Coach, I can't afford to buy a new pair of shoes, but take these.' He made me take them and I kept them as a reminder. I look at them every day.”
cars
homes
jobs
health
Ewww lol
I've become convinced that the toughest opponent on any major college basketball coach's schedule isn't UNC, OSU, or UCLA. It's ESPN, especially the nightly SportsCenter show. It's the only TV program that has demonstrably altered the way a game is played and coached.
I've never paid much attention to the basketball recruiting services, which I consider to be little more than a scam. 
At the time I met Turner Gill in 1995, he was the quarterbacks coach at Nebraska, then one of the nation's premier programs. He was in Louisville with Tommie Frazier, the Nebraska QB who had been selected as the winner of the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award, given to the nation's top senior signal-caller.
Without Hill, the Jags struggled to a 16-14 record last season. But then they went overseas again, taking 20,000 pairs of shoes to Nigeria even though Hunter couldn't go with them. Laid up by surgery for a herniated disc, the coach nevertheless worked the phones from his bed, trying to get more shoes and enlist more coaches in the cause. He also did some serious soul-searching. The publicity from the shoes, along with his record in a tough situation, had increased his coaching stock to the point that IUPUI fans were worried about keeping him.
Billy Reed