Kentucky, NC State basketball and the danger of "settling"

Kentucky fans, I feel your pain.

Jeff Goodman of Fox Sports wrote a column yesterday outlining the grief Billy Gillispie is catching from Kentucky fans as he struggles through his first two seasons at Kentucky.

Reading the first few paragraphs, it struck me how similar the Kentucky situation of today sounds like State's of 2008 and 2009. A successful coach "run off"...new coach struggling mightily...old coach succeeding elsewhere.

Here's Goodman's piece, slightly modified. See if it doesn't sound like something you've heard before:

Be careful what you wish for.

Kentucky N.C. State fans drove Tubby Smith Herb Sendek out of Lexington Raleigh despite a national title and 10 5 consecutive NCAA tournament appearances.

They wanted a guy who could recruit McDonald's All-Americans.

Someone that could take them back to the promised land — where Big Blue The Pack was competing for national championships again.

Instead, they got Billy Clyde Gillispie Sidney Lowe.

At first, they accepted him like their first-born. It didn't matter that he had only been a head coach for five years never been a college head coach and was a virtual unknown who had been pegged by arguably the one of the most storied program[s] in the history of college basketball.

Billy Clyde Sidney was theirs and they stood behind him — no matter what I or anyone else said. They went nuts when he was unveiled on Midnight Madness at the first open practice two years ago, emerging triumphant from behind four large curtains.

But now, after nearly two ho-hum seasons in the Gillispie Lowe Era, his act is starting to wear thin with the Wildcat Wolfpack Faithful.

It was as if Goodman were filling out the fields of a Herb/Lowe template article. "Be careful what you wish for." Hasn't that been the mantra of the media with respect to Herb and Sidney for the last two years?

The Herb articles have continued through this season, and were at their highest din a few weeks ago when the Sun Devils were knocking on the door of the top 10 and marching toward a Pac-10 title. Now that ASU is taking a March swoon -- at the same time the Pack is showing some improvement -- I doubt we'll hear much bleating from the press on the matter for the time being (save for a miracle title of some sort for ASU).

But to the point, I have sympathy for Kentucky fans.

There comes a time with every fanbase, no matter how successful a coach may have been at one point, that it's clear the coach has plateaued. Smith had reached that point with Kentucky. He'd won a national title early on in his tenure at Kentucky but it was clear that he was just Sweet 16/Elite Eight-good for the long haul, and that's not good enough at Kentucky.

Herb plateaued here, as well, and (for the most part) we all knew it. Even worse, the media knew it -- yet somehow for the media, a coach whose proven level of success is barely getting into the tournament was supposed to be good enough for State.

The same of Smith at Kentucky. He was good enough to win the SEC and get past the first weekend of the dance, but somehow that was supposed to be enough for Kentucky.

For the majority of fans, settling for a plateaued coach is not an option. It shouldn't be. If the ultimate goal of every coach, team and fan is to win a championship and it's become abundantly clear that it won't happen under that coach's watch, then what's the point? Why even play the games? If everything is a prelude to an "eh" finish, then it's time for a change.

State had reached that point.

So had Kentucky.

I don't know if Gillispie is the answer at Kentucky. I don't know if Sidney is the answer at State. But if there's anything I can say to Kentucky fans, it's that there's absolutely no shame in wanting more out of your basketball program, and self-righteous media members should never convince you that "settling" is a viable option. Especially if Kentucky or State is on the front of your jersey -- two programs with multiple NCAA titles and rich basketball traditions.

I would say give Gillispie his due time -- five years. Sidney is turning things around in year three; perhaps Gillispie can show he can do it, too, in Lexington. But if five years pass and either one isn't getting the job done and the fanbase clamors for another change, it's unfair for the media to come after them for aspiring for more than simply "good enough."

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Sour grapes? Ehhh...maybe.

The NCAA Tournament field was set yesterday evening, and one of the first teams left on the outside looking in was Arizona State. Herb Sendek's Arizona State.

It may be sour grapes on my part, but frankly I'm glad they didn't get in.

Had they gotten a bid, it would've been just another feather in the cap of Carolina, Duke and college basketball fans in general who said we ran off a great coach in Sendek. I had this very debate with some coworkers yesterday while watching the selection show. I can only imagine what kind of nonsense I would've heard had Arizona State made it in.

I wish Herb no ill-will. He did a fantastic job rebuilding this program out of the depths it had fallen during the Les Robinson years. He brought in one of the best players in the program's history in Julius Hodge and he took us to five straight NCAA Tournaments. I hope he has all the success in the world out in Tempe.

But not right now.

Not while State tries to find itself as a basketball program. Because while we fight amongst ourselves--both the team and the fans--as to how to attack the problems of returning to where Herb left off as a tournament-caliber team and then exceeding that level of success, local fans of the blues and even members of the media will continue to snipe at us for being unreasonable, unrealistic and irrational.

One of my coworkers said something to the effect of, "Who could you bring in better than Herb? Who would want to have to compete with Duke and Carolina right up the road?" My response was, "Was Rick Pitino afraid to go to Louisville with Kentucky up the road?" I suppose I could've made a case for Bob Huggins going to Kansas St. with Kansas right in their backyard for one season before leaving for his alma mater at West Virginia, but the Lousiville comparison is very appropriate to our situation--a team with multiple national titles but whose recent success had faded (prior to Pitino's arrival).

I guess Carolina and Duke fans just don't GET it. I don't know if it's their own success that clouds their perspective, or our lack of any tangible success over the last 20 years, a combination of the two or none of the above. But they really, TRULY believe we had the best coach we could ever expect to have in Herb, and that the level of success we were experiencing with him (1 win over a non-Doherty-coached Carolina team in 10 years, 1 Sweet Sixteen appearance) was the best we should hope for.

Nevermind the fact that when one of their programs experienced a brief blip of ineptitude, they kicked his hindquarters to the curb just as fast as you please. And when you ask them about their lack of patience as a fanbase for ousting one of their own, they'll simply reply, "But, we're Carolina."

Pssh.

I still think Sidney can get us where we want to be as a program. It will take time, and these knuckleheads asking to fire Sidney after two freaking years are idiots for doing so. I can't see throwing any coach out until he's coached a full squad of his players--especially given the grumblings of separate factions within the team forming of Herb's players versus Sid's. If, after year four or five, the same lack of effort and execution are there or our young talent hasn't developed any from year one to year four, then we can re-examine the argument.

But for right now, I'm 100% behind Sidney to get it done, and I'm 110% sure we're better off in the long run without Herb here in Raleigh.

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From the PackPride.com vault: The early years...

I have had the rare privilege over the last few years of being a contributor to one of the largest--if not most-visited--N.C. State sports sites, www.packpride.com. James Henderson and the folks at Scout, who run and host the site, have been kind enough to let me pitch in my two cents on Wolfpack sports over the years.

What follows is a collection of articles I've written throughout the years. Hard to believe the first one I wrote way-back-when in 2002. Remember that time? Yeah, that's when we were lighting the world on fire in football. Seems hard to believe it's been five and a half years since.

*sigh*

Anyways, enjoy some classics from the year of our Lord, 2002:


The Nature of the Rivalry (10/5/2002)

For most of us, it was not a choice we remember making. We were born into it. Raised up in it. Given no other choice but to devote ourselves to it. It’s the Rivalry: State vs. Carolina.

The ACC anything but predictable (10/22/2002)

The conventional notions of who belongs where in the ACC have been thrown out the window.

The Pack--This Year’s Maryland? Hardly. (10/29/2002)

The successes of Maryland in 2001 and N.C. State in 2002 are strikingly similar. 2003 is where the similarities will end.

Were we ever so young?

More to follow...

View the complete entry of "From the PackPride.com vault: The early years..."

Who's this dashing young man?

Oh yeah, that guy.

Always wondered what he looked like with hair...

And before you guys get all over me for having a picture of Herb on my blog, I can tell you truthfully that I found it looking for some photoshopping material. I'm not one of these, "Herb, come back!" types. Just thought it was a funny picture I'd never seen before. Chillax.

View the complete entry of "Who's this dashing young man?"