J-MART NOTE: Solid effort this time. Young Mr. Wolters is taking some liberties, but I’m not going to bust his nuggets over it. Seriously, he’s doing a splendid job in D. Scott Fritchen’s hometown, so I’m not mad at him. The staff here at K-Stated is appreciative of his effort.
Twenty-four hours in Orlando has felt like 72 hours in Orlando. I’m dragging, but The Milk House isn’t. Back for round No. 2 tonight, and what’s to expect? Well, if you’re K-State, hopefully anything better than last night.
I’m not going to spend too much space on the game itself. If you’re reading this, then I’m guessing you watched it. What I am going to do is give you some “Wednesday with Frank” flavor and use some of the stuff he gave us in his postgame press conference last night.
“We set up the schedule to play teams like George Mason. When you have seven first-year players it’s just a process your team has to go through. I mean, we could play a soft schedule and end up with 14 non-conference wins (but) what has the team really learned about winning games against good teams?”
I can’t decide if Frank is taking a shot at Jim Wooldridge with this. I’m going to say no, but it couldn’t be more true. Wooly loved the soft non-con schedule. He built up the record through November and December to Big 12 play, thinking they might sneak in to the Tournament if they could get that “one more stop, one more rebound, one more basket” in conference play. Yes, he cushioned the record but never built the team for what was to come. This is what Frank is doing (and what Huggs was going to do), and this is why he’s willing to take the black eyes along the way.
(Speaking of Wooly, his UC-Riverside bunch is 0-4 to start they year. He’s got Idaho tomorrow night at home, and we here at K-Stated wish him the very best. What a great man.)
J-MART NOTE: Love that man. Maybe not a great coach, but what a tremendous man.
“The biggest thing for our basketball team is that we allow teams to go on runs that are too big, and that happens when you’ve got young players. We don’t have that senior mentality, yet, when things aren’t going right to regroup and say ‘Let’s hold up. We’ve got to run something and get this person inside or whatever.’ You know, we just don’t have that right now.
Again, I’m not going to put words in Frank’s mouth, but that statement screams David Hoskins!!! They miss his scoring and his toughness, but that “senior mentality” that “I’ve been here before” and that “Shut up and do your job and quit whining” would go a long, long way for this team right now. Later in the season as the young’ens mature, that kind of stuff won’t be as necessasry, but boy, it would be nice for them to have now.
“We get it down to six (in the second half) and we - with two freshmen on the court - give up on a defensive rotation on a baseline drive. We give up a wide-open three to make it nine. Then we go down and make a chippy, and our freshman point guard gets sucked up, and we give up a lay up. It’s a six-point game and we’ve got them defensively where we want them on a baseline drive, and then we have back-to-back breakdowns.”
How do coaches do that? Keep in mind, Frank talked to us a good half hour after the game was over and he remembered that exact sequence? Huggins was great at doing that, too, but I just think that’s amazing they can remember all that. OK, that was a needless quote to put up on my part, but I felt the need to share my amazement.
OK, that’s all I got…for now. We’re getting close to tip here. Again, if you got anything you’d like me to weigh in on, post a comment at the bottom. Remember, this blog’s for you.
Hope you got yourself some ESPNU.