Saturday, February 05, 2011

Deacons Get Bullied Again

Al Groh made an observation 30 years ago that kept ringing in my head as I watched Maryland cuff the Deacons 91-70 in basketball today in College Park.

It was right after Clemson’s football team had laid four score and two points on the Deacons in the infamous 82-24 game in Death Valley that Groh, upon meeting with the media afterward, said it was like big strong men playing against young boys. That’s what I’ve been watching in basketball all season and I saw it again today. The Deacons are simply too weak physically to compete against the best teams in the ACC.

The term ``Ball Strong,’’ is one Coach Jeff Bzdelik uses constantly in practice. And yet I don’t know if I’ve ever seen a team weaker with the ball than Bzdelik’s first at Wake Forest. Opponents just take the ball away for the same reason a big guy takes a little guy’s lunch money—because they can. And until the Deacons get big and strong enough to do something about it, they’re going to continue to take the kind of lumps they took again today.

Way back when I read about basketball legend Bob Petitt, and how when he first showed up at LSU he had trouble with people knocking the ball out of his hands. How true that was I don’t know, especially considering he averaged 25.6 points and 13.7 as a sophomore, the first season he was eligible. But it made for a good story anyhow, the way he got a set of hand grips and squeezed them constantly for a year until he developed a pair of hands strong enough to score 20,880 points and grab 12,849 rebounds in the NBA and, in 1970, be inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame.

Maybe modern physical science has developed a better way to strength hands and forearms, I don’t know.  I do know that until the Deacons are able to hold on to what should be theirs’, they’re going to keep getting pushed around.

An ugly second half got even uglier when freshman J.T. Terrell picked up his third technical of the season. Terrell drew his first against Xavier and his second three games ago against Duke when right as a little skirmish was getting sorted out, he walked up and pushed Kyle Singler in the back. Bzdelik, as I was to learn, was not pleased. And he didn’t look pleased today when Terrell, after getting his shot blocked and landing on the court, kicked at Dino Gregory’s private area as Gregory ran past him downcourt.

I realize Terrell got kicked in the head himself as he was on the court, but it didn’t look intentional. What Terrell did clearly was. That’s two technicals in four games now for behavior for which there’s no place in a game of college basketball. Bzdelik took Terrell out of the game, as he should have. The word has a way of getting the ACC which players the referees should be watching out for, and I have to think that Terrell is not at the top of the list then he’s close. That’s not good for Terrell, and that’s not good for his team.

Terrell is 19, to turn 20 on Nov. 24. He’s old enough to know better.

Friday, February 04, 2011

String Music

One of the things that makes life worth living is if something really means enough to you then you always find people to help you enjoy it. They just show up, knowing you for who you are and who you’re supposed to be.

Readers of this blog know my thing is music. At 11, about the time the Beatles hit our shores, I realized that writing songs was the absolute most extraordinarily awesome thing a person on this planet could do. By 15 or 16 I was making attempts to do just that. Forty-plus years later I’m still making those attempts, which have piled up in the dozens. I really like writing about Wake Forest for the Journal and this blog, but I have to tell you that as soon as Willie Nelson covers one of my songs and it goes platinum, I’m on to that other gig.

But along the way all these wonderful people have materialized to help me along. Bruce Winkworth, the baseball media relations director extraordinaire at N.C. State has showered me with tapes and CDs over the years, turning me on to many of the artists who I consider among my very favorite. Bruce really steeped me in that Texas Singer Songwriter crowd, the Steve Earles and Guy Clarks and Townes Van Zandts and James McMurtrys (I’m really, really big on James McMurtry), Billy Joe Shavers and Joe Elys and Jimmy Dale Gilmores and even the late great Blaze Foley.

And then there’s Bill Armour, one of the first real Wake Forest people I got to know well when I landed in Winston in 1978. Billy A is a recovering sportswriter who worked for the Winston-Salem Sentinel back when there was a Winston-Salem Sentinel, but who was smart enough to go out and get a real job. Billy A, who like me was lucky enough to see the Dead back when Pigpen was still on harmonica and singing Turn On Your Lovelight and Jerry was actually skinny,  has also been a big-time musical benefactor over the year, always seeming to know just who I needed to hear next to get where I needed to go. Billy A outdid himself a couple of months ago, presenting to me an external hard drive with a terabyte of capacity absolutely filled with recordings, mostly audio but a fair share of video of pretty much anyone and everyone you would ever want to hear. He said if I did nothing else but listen to music 24 hours a day—and I’m tempted to take him up on it—I’d need six years to hear everything in the library. My Christmas present from Nate, my son/technical adviser, was a plug attachment that allowed me to hook up my computer to my stereo and thus get the sound out of my much, much better speakers.

And that’s how I’m able to listen to a Clash concert from the London Lyceum on Jan. 3, 1979 London’s Calling while I write this post about Gary Clark’s 3-point percentage.

Clark, Wake’s only senior, is burning it up from outside this season, as you’ve probably heard. After shooting 32.4 percent from beyond the arc his first three seasons, Clark has made 41 of 65 this season for a whopping 63.1 percent. There’s red hot, there’s white hot and then there’s whatever Clark is doing this season. But the reason he doesn’t show up in the NCAA or ACC statistics is he hasn’t made enough 3-pointers to qualify for the rankings.

The NCAA requires 2.5 made 3-pointers a game, the ACC two. The only two times Clark popped up in the ACC stats was after he made five against Winthrop to give him 11 (out of 14 for 71.4 percent) in five games and after he made four against UNC Wilmington to give him 19 (out of 27 for 66.7 percent) in nine games. Then he made one against UNC Greensboro, one against Xavier and none against Presbyterian to fall off the pace. He really fell behind when he hit a stretch of only one over the three games against High Point, N.C. State and Maryland to find himself with only 28 over 17 games. Clark has picked it up since, drilling 13 over the past five games but still goes into tomorrow’s game at Maryland with 41 in 22 games. So if he makes five against Maryland like he did against Winthrop, then he’s back in the ACC rankings so far ahead that he can’t even been seen by the pack.

Malcolm Grant of Miami currently leads with 44.4 percent.

Enough of this work. It’s Friday night, my bride and I ordering popcorn shrimp takeout and watching Nowhere Boy, the biopic of a young English spud named Lennon. I’ll let you know if it’s worth your time.

Where’s the Beef?

There has been some concern voiced out there in the Peanut Gallery that Jim Grobe and his staff whiffed this recruiting period on one of the great needs of the program, more size in the defensive line. Both DC and Jim were especially concerned about the nose guard position in the 3-4 defense, which redshirt freshman Nikita Whitlock played this past season at 235 pounds. So let’s assess what Coach Ray McCartney will have to work with starting with spring drills.

I see on the roster 10 candidates for playing time at one of the defensive line positions, and that’s not counting Kyle Wilber or Tristan Dorty, both of whom are expected to be at outside linebacker. It also doesn’t include Gelo Orange, who I imagine at 6-1, 230 pounds will get his best shot at playing time at linebacker. The 10, in descending order of size according to their 2010 weight are:

Sophomore Ramon Booi—6-6, 300 pounds.
Freshman Duke Mosby—6-2, 290 pounds.
Redshirt freshman Frank Souza—6-4, 285 pounds.
Redshirt freshman John Gallagher—6-4, 255 pounds.
Redshirt freshman Kris Redding—6-4, 255 pounds.
Redshirt freshman Zach Thompson—6-5, 255 pounds.
Sophomore Derricus Ellis—6-2, 245 pounds.
Redshirt freshman Nikita Whitlock—5-11, 235 pounds.
Freshman Daniel Vogelsang—6-3, 235 pounds.
Sophomore Kevin Smith—6-4, 230 pounds.

So, at least on the face of it, the concern appears valid. I can buy the argument that a defensive lineman in a 3-4 needs more lead in the britches, so to speak, than one playing in a 4-3. I guess the main thing I could say to assuage that concern (which as far as I can tell is one that neither Grobe nor McCartney seem to share) is that so many of these players are young, and thus more apt to put on weight before the start of the 2011 season. I remember one Tuesday gathering to eat chicken and talk football late in the season when Grobe talked about how both Thompson and Gallagher were already considerably heavier than the weight listed in the roster. I do plan to make it a point to ask Ethan Reeve, the strength and conditioning coach, for updated weights at the outset of spring practices. If I forget, please jog my feeble memory.

Another option would be to move an offensive lineman or two over to provide ballast. Two that have been mentioned as capable of playing either side are redshirt freshman Devin Bolling (6-5, 290 pounds) and freshman Antonio Ford (6-3, 285 pounds).

I did ask Grobe on Wednesday if both of the defensive linemen signed this week were seen as bona fide, knuckles in the ground defensive linemen and weren’t being looked at as possible outside linebackers. The two I had in mind were Desmond Floyd (6-3, 235 pounds) and Gods-Power Offor (6-2, 220 pounds).

“They could do both, I think,’’ Grobe said. “I think when you look at Desmond Floyd, he has potential to be a real, real big guy. I think he could really blow up. And Gods-Power, you have the same thoughts because he’s big and physical enough to play defensive end. But both of these can run really well.’‘

Wednesday, February 02, 2011

Sousa Penciled in Under Center

When I popped into my mailbox to email my story on today’s recruiting class at Wake Forest, I found a press release from Kevin Sousa, the quarterback from Orlando. He wanted, as a favor, for me to publish it. Seeings how I might need a favor or two from Kevin over the next five sesons, I decided to oblige him.

“From the moment I step foot on campus, my goal is to work harder then any other QB to ever put on a Wake Forest jersey. God has blessed me with this great opportunity and I am going to make those that have helped me on this journey, my family, Coach (Anthony) Paradiso, my coaching staff, my teammates, the student body, the faculty and the entire Wake Forest alumni proud. My dedication and desire to excel are as equal as my determination to be great!  I want to lead Wake to an ACC championship again and compete nationally for a championship.  I expect pressure and anyone who doubts that it can’t be done, I will use those doubts to fuel my drive and motivate my team to be great. All things are possible to those who believe, and my actions on and off the field will reflect my words today. I, along with my future teammates and coaches will do whatever it takes to make any past, present or future Demon
Deacon proud, No excuses!”

- Kevin Sousa
  Quarterback #8
  Lake Nona HS

I was impressed by how gregarious and articulate Sousa was when I first talked with him upon his commitment to Wake Forest. As you probably know, he originally committed to Michigan, but changed his mind. The word I had heard on him was he had the kind of size and ability to help the Deacons at several different positions, and he actually told me he was willing to play wherever he can best help the team.

When I mentioned that to Jim Grobe today, Grobe said not to expect to see Sousa at linebacker or tight end. Instead he’ll be turned over to Tommy Elrod, the assistant in charge of quarterbacks, the day he arrives at Wake.

“He’s a guy that, quite frankly, we’re only looking at as a quarterback,’’ Grobe said. “We don’t have any thoughts of him playing another position. Now I’m sure the kid would like to. He’s a competitor and he wants to be on the field. But we’ve got to develop him. Tommy’s job is to get him developed as a quarterback.

“It hurt us in recruiting with a couple of other kids that wanted to play quarterback, but we were going to take one. We were going to take Kevin Sousa and work with him. The problem that you get into is when you get four, five or six kids and you start trying to find reps for all those kids at one position it’s just impossible. So we lost a couple of kids late that we might have had a pretty good shot at if we had promised they could come in and play quarterback, but we didn’t have need for another quarterback after Kevin Sousa.’‘

Tuesday, February 01, 2011

The High Cost of Wisdom and Experience

Watch (or listen) really closely how Wake comes out tonight against Florida State. The first few minutes should tell volumes.

I base that on a conversation I had a couple of months ago with Coach Jeff Bzdelik. A week or so after the season-opening loss to Stetson, I happened to mention to Bzdelik that I thought the Deacons had allowed the 40-point exhibition victory over Division III Guilford to go to their heads.

He immediately, and emphatically, agreed.

Immaturity, not physical ability, has been Wake’s biggest stumbling block. So few of the Deacons knew how to deal with the rigors of college basketball, mostly because so few of them had ever had to. You could see their immaturity in how they played their best basketball of the pre-ACC season against the best teams (Gonzaga and Xavier) and their worst against the worst (Stetson, Winthrop, UNC Greensboro). Why a freshman or unproven sophomore or junior would need a name opponent to inspire him to a good performance is beyond me, but that certainly seemed to be the case.

So now that the Deacons have finally won an ACC game, beating Virginia 76-71 Saturday, how will they respond tonight? Will they recognize how much work remains for them to become competitive against the better teams in the league or will they rest on the meager laurels of a five-point home victory against a team without its star forward? It’s a question that really shouldn’t have to be asked, but obviously I feel compelled.

I have seen signs that all of Bzdelik’s labor is beginning to bear fruit. Even in the debacle at Georgia Tech, I thought the Deacons ran good offense in the first half. But when the shots wouldn’t fall, they broke down in the second. And I thought the offense produced an encouraging number of good shots against Duke, but again, the results could not be seen in the shooting percentage. Then Saturday the Deacons’ offense had its way with the Cavaliers’ defense, especially in the second half when they were shooting 56 percent and scoring on 10 of their final 11 possessions.

The turnovers are fewer and farther between and the willingness to share the basketball and look for open teammates has become more and more apparent. Over the past two games, no Deacon has taken more than nine field-goal attempts. Six scored at least 11 points against Virginia. J.T. Terrell is a different player from what he was earlier, when he took 17 shots from the floor against Stetson, 16 against Iowa and Xavier and 13 against UNC Greensboro and Maryland. He took seven against Virginia and still scored 11 points by making three of six from 3-point range. The game before, he was two for seven in 21 minutes against Duke.

Some of you have written that beating a struggling Virginia team by five at home was no great accomplishment, and in most instances I’d agree with you. But for this team, this year, any accomplishment is significant. The wisdom and experience, as Bzdelik has said countless times, has come at a high cost.

Is Wake ready to reap the dividends from that outlay? My guess is we’ll know tonight.

And my suspicions are it won’t take long?

ADDENDUM: I flubbed by not reporting that Melvin Tabb was sidelined against Virginia by a sore ankle. Mike Gorman of the Peanut Gallery reminded me of my oversight. Tabb practiced Monday and will be available tonight against FSU. Thanks Mike.

Defusing the Bombs

By and large I’ve been most impressed with the level of discourse to be found in the comments to MTOW. There are differences of opinion, some of them sharp, which invariably produce some discord. Even so, the consideration, respect and overall civility toward me and other readers is something I’ve been pleased to see. And as I’ve written before, harmony is great in music but can be really, really boring in opinions about the state and direction of an athletics program. And if everyone in the world thought I was 100 percent right on everything I thought or wrote, my bride would not be able to live with me. She has a hard enough time as is.

Of course not every comment makes the cut. As I’ve mentioned before I won’t abide by name calling, personal attacks or rumors/innuendo that unfairly bring a person’s character into question.

And occasionally I’ll get a bomb thrower throwing a bomb my way and I just defuse it by throwing it in the delete pile with all the other duds. One I got a couple of weeks ago called for physical violence against Ron Wellman and Jeff Bzdelik in disturbingly graphic detail. A couple of days later I ran across this piece by Jeff Pearlman of SI.Com Pearlman Tracks Down Critic that dealt with the issue of what can happen in this internet age when actions so often have little or no consequences.

Whenever I’ve been taken to task by a reader, I always follow the same procedure. I thank them for the comment, I try as best I can to explain why I wrote what I did the way I did and I endeavor to avoid, at all costs, any defensive or contentious tone. And my experiences usually mirror that of Pearlman. The detractor will write me back, thank me for the response and say he probably went a little overboard in his original missive.

It’s a Brave New World we’re living in, even old dogs like me.

Monday, January 31, 2011

Spitting in the Ocean

The last full week of January was certainly one to remember around the Wake beat, a week when seemingly everyone with any emotional attachment whatsoever with the state and direction of the basketball program had their say.

Ron Wellman had his on multiple occasions, on the Duke post-game with Stan and Dinger, at the Raleigh Sports Club that night, with me in his office on Tuesday, with the fan base at large in Friday’s Fan Forum.

Jeff Bzdelik had his talking with Joedy McCreary of the Associated Press and me before Friday’s practice.

The fans had theirs’ throughout the week with comments to this blog, to the Message Boards and to Wellman in the Fan Forum.

And on Saturday, the Deacons had theirs’ with the loudest say of all, a therapeutic 76-71 victory over Virginia. Almost as gratifying as the win itself was the way it was won, with the Deacons hitting 14 of 14 free throws in the second half and scoring on 10 of their final 11 possessions.

Now, if you’ll indulge me, I’ll have mine.

It’s a fan’s prerogative to be concerned when their team is tanking, and no team in ACC basketball spent the first 2 1/2 months tanking as spectacularly as Wake. I can even see how some fans would consider it their duty. Nobody, not Wellman, not Bzdelik, not you, not me, should consider criticism under such circumstances to be untoward or in any way out of bounds.

But what I did find misguided were the calls from a small but exceedingly vocal minority for the firing of Bzdelik or Wellman, if not both. More than misguided, they were, at least in my mind, irrational.

The last question I asked Wellman was what he would say to those demanding Bzdelik be showed the door, if not ASAP, then certainly after the season. His answer—that it’s not going to happen—was the only would he was going to give. It was also the only one he could give. He hired the man in April and he’s not going to do anything to undercut him in January no matter how bad things get.

And as for Wellman’s standing, my suspicions are its going to take far more than two straight losing football seasons followed a losing basketball season to give President Hatch or the Board of Trustees any reason for pause. I don’t know all the politics involved, but if any forces are agitating for a change at the top of Wake’s athletics programs I haven’t gotten wind of them.

So the takeaway from the week was that both Bzdelik and Wellman are here to stay, at least for the for the foreseeable future. Wellman is not going to fire Bzdelik after one year.

And to demand that he does is as irrational as spitting in the ocean and expecting the sea level to rise.

Saturday, January 29, 2011

A work in Progress Finally Progresses

If you’re like me, you look for signs wherever and however they might appear. And I had a hunch I had heard one before today’s game between Wake and Virginia at Joel Coliseum. My I-Pod was set, as usual, to the shuffle mode, and the song playing as I pulled into my spot in media parking across the street at Deacon Tower was one I imagine you might have heard as well. Don’t Worry, Be Happy.

Landlord say your rent is late,
And he may have to litigate,
Don’t worry, be happy.

So if you were anywhere around the back entrance of Joel Coliseum around two hours before tipoff, you might have heard me humming that infectious tune as I walked past. I was, indeed, happy, partly because we all had a time to remember last night at the Blind Tiger grooving and rocking to Donna the Buffalo, and partly because I had a feeling I was going to see something new and exciting and different out of Wake today. In the interest of full disclosure, I admit I’ve had it before this season, only to find out how wrong I was. But I knew the Deacons were coming off a week’s respite and playing a banged up team blown out at home two days earlier by Maryland. And I could see in practice, and hear in the voices of the coaches and players how hard they were working to pull out of their season-long nose dive.

I’ve written before how, unlike most of you guys, I don’t live and die with the outcome of the games I cover. If you’re a professional journalist, you’ve learned not to. And it bears noting that a really, really bad team is, in one essential way, easier to cover than a middling one. At least the story is defined. You don’t have to spend all your energy and focus trying to analyze and chronicle where the season is and where it’s headed. But the drawback, of course, is the sea of negativity you find yourself swimming in, and no matter how judicious and honest and straightforward you try to be, there are times its riptide can pull you under.

I sensed the Deacons might beat Virginia at Friday’s practice, and I felt it even stronger when I saw how they came out today. They weren’t razor sharp, especially on defense, but they were playing hard and hustling. I also noticed that four different Deacons, Gary Clark, C.J. Harris, Travis McKie and J.T. Terrell all drilled 3-pointers in the first 10 minutes, which I suspected might buck up their confidence as the game progressed.

Even when Wake came out flat in the second half and fell behind 48-38, I saw no need to change my tune. There were 13 minutes remaining and the Deacons, once again, were much more rested. I could see Cavaliers’ legs might get a bit heavy down the stretch.

The one moment I wondered if I’d been taken it again came after Wake cut the lead to 55-54 with seven minutes left. Clark got a wide-open shot off the fast break—his shot, the one he’s made all season—and missed. The ball was knocked out of bounds and J.T. Terrell got the ball in the left corner open enough to set his feet, exhale, take a sip of soda if he so desired, before he let it fly. And he missed.

Could I have been wrong? Was there cause to Worry, and Not Be Happy? Was I to see the Deacons go down once again?

What I saw instead was the Deacons get the ball 11 more times in the game, and score on 10 of them. The only empty possession was the time Ty Walker, in the midst of a breakout offensive performance, missed a layup. Otherwise the Deacons gashed Virginia’s defense, scoring on jumpers, drives and free throws. C.J. Harris was money in the second half, making eight of eight free throws, the final two with 36.6 second left for a 74-68 cushion.

Afterward I mentioned to Harris the misses by Clark and Terrell and the feeling that came over me in seeing them.

“We’re just maturing,’’ Harris said. “Five games ago we probably would have broke down and it could have been a blow-out out there. So we showed that guys are growing, we’re fighting through adversity and pulling through.’‘

Jeff Bzdelik made pretty much the same point in his post-game address.

“Listen, we spend half of our time not just on Xs and Os, but addressing the mental part of this game,’’ Bzdelik said. “On the board today was grit, it was discipline, it was toughness, it was being a good teammate, will. Those kinds of things. Right before we took the court we showed Al Pacino’s clip on Any Given Sunday in the locker room.

“It’s so much about our mental makeup and having confidence and fighting through things and not fighting ourselves – and I don’t mean fight among each other; they just get down. It’s a lot of stuff. And we need to understand what it takes to win games, and that’s playing through adversity. And what is toughness? And what is grit? And all those kinds of things, battling.’‘

Progress was made today, and as I’ve written progress doesn’t always run on schedule. It lurches forward, and it backtracks. Come Tuesday night in Tallahassee, the Deacons might get run off the court by Florida State. But the team I saw today is a much better team than the one I saw get clubbed by Virginia Tech and Georgia Tech. And maybe best of all, I don’t have to concern myself with a story I didn’t want to write, a team in danger of posting the first 0-16 record in ACC history.

So it was a good day.

I wonder how different it would have been if the song I heard as I was pulling into the parking lot today had instead been that came on as I was driving down Deacon Boulevard home.  Sing It Merle

Friday, January 28, 2011

Bzdelik Makes His Case

Gotta make this fast. My bride and I are stepping out tonight, headed over to Greensboro and meet up with Lenox and friends for a Donna the Buffalo show at the new Blind Tiger. We haven’t seen Donna the Buffalo in two or three years, and it’s about time we did.

But before I shove off, I wanted to get a post up on Jeff Bzdelik, and how he responded to what people are saying about him and the current state of the program. I was at practice at Joel Coliseum when my friend and colleague, Joedy McCreary of the Associated Press dropped by from having attended Ron Wellman’s Fan Forum across the street at Deacon Tower.

McCreary asked Bzdelik an interesting question and I thought the response was worth posting.

McCreary: Ron today said that even from day one he had made it clear to you to take the long view as opposed to worrying about short-term results. How difficult is that to do?

Bzdelik: I’ll tell you what’s difficult to do—you look at my career. It seems like I’ve always been in these kind of situations. When we got to Davidson, Davidson’s record improved. We had gotten there and (Dave) Pritchett had been there and gotten ill, and that program got significantly better. Rick Barnes got the Southern Conference (Assistant Coach) Rookie of the Year and the next year I got the Southern Conference (Assistant Coach) Freshman of the Year. Then we go to Northwestern and in our fourth year there we took Northwestern to the best year they every had – NIT, beat Notre Dame in the first round. For Northwestern, that was significant. We played Notre Dame with Digger Phelps and we beat them and the we had to play DePaul with Mark Aguirre and everybody else, and Bernard Randolph made a shot from halfcourt to beat us. Then I go to UMBC. They were 11-45 Division II and they decided to go Division I. I probably got the job because nobody else wanted it. We wind up winning 10 out our last 12 games my first year – in Division I. I think we were 25-31 my first two years there, and Wes Unseld offers me the job with the Washington Bullets. Doubled my pay, didn’t have to move, (I was at a) independent Division I, where’s my future?  But my third year, you look at it, and they won 20 games. Think about that. But people don’t see that on my record. I go to Washington and I go to Miami, we go to the Nuggets. They wanted to tear that down and we have the sixth-best turnaround in NBA history. I go to Air Force and they had won 18 games the year before. We win 50 (in two years), 11th in the nation, NCAA Tournament, all that stuff.  I go to Colorado and they’d won only seven games the year before. They were awful. My third year we got 15 wins. Now we’ve got (14), but I’m not there to see it. And people don’t see that on my record. Now I come here and they won 20 games last year. They won 20 games with five seniors, two pros – five of those games in the last minute. Now we come here and I lose Tony Woods and Tony Chennault. My point is, in that big-picture stuff, people look at me and they’re saying `He’s not successful, what has he done?’ If you really look at it, I feel good about where we’ve been and how we’ve left the state of the program after I left. I just never stayed there. That’s on me. Things – I never looked for another job – just kind of happened. Wes Unseld called me up. `Oh, wow! Wes Unseld.’ I’m at Air Force and Colorado calls me up. Coach K was actually the one who put me there. We played them in the finals of the CBE (Tournament) in Kansas City and he goes `I know Colorado is interested in you Jeff.’ He goes `you know, I almost stayed at Army too long.’ He never had great teams there. He said `I almost stayed there too long. You’ve got to go.’ And when a guy like that tells you, it makes you think. And then this school, `Wow!’ And I knew Colorado was going through . . . they weren’t sure if they were going to (stay in) the Big 12. There was talk about the Mountain West Conference. They weren’t sure what they weren’t doing. I’m not crying a river, I’m just trying to explain the big picture. That’s what sometimes I think I struggle with personally, because the tangible evidence of me being able to improve a program and create it to where it’s right isn’t in black and white. You have to go under the surface to see that. So now I’ve become the target.  But you know what? I can’t let that bother me, and I really, truly don’t.

I mentioned that it takes a strong man not to.

Bzdelik: You know I just hate to keep explaining myself. But you know what, I’m a human being, and as much as I try. . . and I worry about my son and a daughter. They know. If I had stayed at UMBC another year and you saw 20 wins. If I had stayed at Colorado one more year, and you saw 20 wins, then you go `Cool.’ But I never was able to dot the I’s and cross the T’s.

As for any comments you guys might have, you’ll have to wait until I get home from the show to see them here. But in the meantime, you can entertain yourself with a little of one of my favorite Roots Rock Bands. Donna the Buffalo

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Ron’s Take on the Basketball Program: Part 9

MTOW: Are you seeing the changes in the culture that you wanted to see?

RW: Yes.

MTOW: What are you seeing? Define that for me.

RW: I see the changes that will allow Jeff to be successful. I see the change being made – and change is the wrong word – I see the culture being built that will allow him to be successful because he’s being true to himself. And he is building the culture that will allow him to take this program to its potential. And you can’t do that, I don’t think, unless you’re true to yourself. And Jeff is being true to the values in which he believes. So yeah I see it. There are some changes as a result of that, but again that’s because that’s what Jeff needs to do rather than just taking a previous culture that could have been successful for the previous coach. Every new coach has to build their culture. They have to establish the foundation. In this particular situation, it’s especially important for Jeff to do that because we have such a young, impressionable team. So his culture, and his foundation, is what will take this program to the heights that we all desire.

MTOW: You’re well-versed in college basketball. Do you see a parallel among cultures of successful programs? In other words, do the teams that keep getting to the Final Four, are there parts of their culture that you see as consistent?

RW: Yes, definitely.

MTOW: What are those?

RW: First of all they have a great coach. If you look at the Final Four teams for the last six years, and they all do certain things very similar. Mike Krzyzewksi, Brad Stevens, Bob Huggins, Tom Izzo, Roy Williams, Jim Calhoun, Jay Wright, Bill Self, John Calipari, Ben Howland, Billy Donovan, Thad Matta, John Thompson, Jim Larranaga, Bruce Weber, Rick Pitino at Louisville. They’re all really outstanding coaches who have great coaching ability and have great relationships with their players. They’re different relationships with their players. If you look at Bob Huggins and compare him to Tom Izzo or Mike Krzyzewski or Roy Williams, it’s totally different. But it’s a relationship that gets those players to play their hearts out for those coaches. Their attention to detail is beyond anything that you could imagine, to the point where maybe the greatest coach in the history of college basketball – I think we’ve got a couple of great ones in this conference, but I think everyone looks at John Wooden and it would be difficult to argue with that. Remember what he used to do in his first practice? He had the players sit down and he showed them how to put their socks on. My goodness. You talk about attention to detail. Jeff is doing a good job with those types of details. You look at our team today, there’s a certain way he wants them to wear their uniform. How important can that be? It’s very important, because that’s what he believes in. How important is it for us to conduct ourselves in a certain way on the floor? Remember J.T. the first three he made in one of the first games? And there was quite a celebration by J.T. when he did. J.T. isn’t doing that anymore. Jeff’s idea, and strong suggestion to the players, to get out of yourself and into the team, or into your teammates is becoming evident. It’s more and more evident every practice and every game. So those types of details are going to be the building blocks of this program. They’re important. To some they might be `That’s incidental. That isn’t important.’ But we think it’s important. Jeff thinks it’s important. That’s why those details are being covered on a daily basis.

MTOW: So I imagine if I’m reading it right there are certain things the public can see and certain things the public would never see because it’s interactions between the teammates and the coaching staff.

RW: Exactly, but there isn’t anything that Jeff is not willing to address with the team. There isn’t anything that he does not feel that it’s important, whether it’s relationships within the team, relationships outside the team. He believes all of that is extremely important. I happen to agree with him. So I think those building blocks will pay tremendous dividends in the future.

MTOW: I’m going to ask the question that I know you probably won’t answer, but was it a five-year deal, a five-year contract.

RW: Most of our initial contracts are five years.

MTOW: What can you say to the people who say `He’s got to go.’ What can you say to people who have made up their mind through half a season that he’s not the right man.

RW: It doesn’t bother me because it’s not going to happen. I am totally committed to Jeff. He is the coach who is going to take us where we all want to go. I recognize that we live in a different society today. One of the two or three best coaches, and maybe the best coach, in college basketball today (Mike Krzyzewski), look at his first three years. They were a tough three years, and each year got worse – to the point that his third year, in the first round of the ACC Tournament, he lost to Virginia by 43 points (109-66). I don’t think anyone would rank that coach lower than maybe two or three today. Most people would put him at No. 1. Rightfully so. So I’m going to be very patient with Jeff because I believe in him, and I know he’s doing it the right way, the way it needs to be done at Wake Forest. He has my unparalleled commitment and support.