The K-State men's basketball team couldn't escape the memories of former head coaches Jim Wooldridge and Bob Huggins years after they left.
Coach Frank Martin's men's basketball program will lose a scholarship for the 2008-09 season because it fell short of the NCAA's mandated academic levels set forth by the Academic Progress Rate.
The APR measures the eligibility, retention and graduation of student-athletes competing on every Division I sports team and also serves as a predictor of graduation success.
With this definition, it's not hard to see we were gambling when we hired Huggins. When he was at Cincinnati, he had horrible retention and graduation rates. But let's face it, his teams back then were awesome, so many of the guys were going to the pros early; it's what happens when you're an upper-echelon program.
Huggins commented on his players' graduation rate during a 2008 NCAA Tournament press conference and said he talks to former players that have gone back to school and graduated. He was upset these rules don't take into account the fact that people leave early for the NBA.
He needs to stop lying to himself: He doesn't care about graduation rates; he wants to win basketball games. The same thing was true when he was here.
We should feel bad for Martin since he has to deal with the aftermath of the Huggins and Wooldridge mess. The program had to have seen this coming as a possibility because of the lack of recruits that were committed to K-State before the recent signings of guard Buchi Awaji and center Abdul Herrera.
All is not lost, however, as there are things to look forward to for next year's basketball team.
The biggest ray of hope would be the status of Bill Walker. Bill ... yeah ... be smart, you need to come back.
Will Jacob Pullen have the opportunity to throw ally-oops to David Hoskins?
When next year comes calling, the fans finally will get to see if the advertised speed of Denis Clemente is for real or not.
Ron Anderson's play in the NCAA Tournament was much improved, and he'll get a chance to prove he is a force with which to be reckoned with. Maybe someone needs to talk trash on Anderson as he goes into the locker room at halftime so he can play angry like Michael Beasley.
Something tells me with another year in the gym, Dominique Sutton could be as intimidating physically as Hoskins; he would be unstoppable if he would shoot the ball more when he has a wide open jumper.
On the lighter side, we should also say thanks to Wooldridge by paying him tribute for what he left behind for the university. The easiest way to do this, if we play host to a Big Monday game next season, would be to have a Wooldridge neck brace theme night - all students should where a replica Wooly neck brace.
Mike DeVader thinks - no, knows - he hates KU with a passion. Period. Please send comments to sports@spub.ksu.edu.
Be the first to comment on this story