JASON WHITLOCK COMMENTARY
Bob Huggins Is A Genius
He squeezed 23 victories out of the players Jim Wooldridge left behind, rehabilitated his image just enough to get back into a basketball conference and, most remarkably, instructed Frank Martin and Dalonte Hill on how to hoodwink and bamboozle Jon Wefald and Tim Weiser into astronomical pay raises and job titles they’re not qualified for.
Hollywood needs to make a movie about Bob Huggins and the con job he just ran on two well-meaning, small-town marks.
Kansas State basketball fans will feel the pain of “The Sting II” for quite some time.
The program is a complete laughingstock. It’s an embarrassment to the Big 12. Seriously, conference commissioner Kevin Wieberg should intervene and at the very least object to the irrational decision Wefald and Weiser made, appointing Martin head coach and Hill associate head coach at Kansas State.
Frank Martin was run out of Florida high school coaching because of major recruiting violations. Salary and responsibility won’t improve his ethics. He is what he is, a recruiter, a person perfectly comfortable wading through the muck and corruption of the world that is college recruiting.
You don’t hire a head coach based on one recruiting class. You hire assistant coaches for recruits.
A head coach has to stay above the fray. He has to retain the ability and credibility to call bull spit on everybody and scream that he doesn’t need any one player. Frank Martin will never have that. The players aren’t that kind of stupid. They’ll know that Frank Martin is nothing without them. “Recruiters” are not leaders. The art of being a good recruiter compromises your ability to lead.
This is insane.
Why not name Michael Beasley school president and Bill Walker athletic director? It would work much better.
I’m sorry. I’m moving away from my original point. Bob Huggins set all of this in motion.
There’s this myth that Martin and Hill are really, really upset with Huggins. He left them in a lurch. He betrayed them.
No, Huggins left them all the leverage they needed to land undeserved coaching contracts. How many disgraced, wildly volatile high school coaches land head-coaching jobs in a BCS conference at age 41? And 27-year-old Dalonte Hill gets to play associate head coach in charge of making sure Michael Beasley’s shoes are tied, shirts are pressed and car is washed.
This situation isn’t difficult to read. Huggins, Martin and Hill knew exactly what type of incredibly insecure people they were dealing with, people more than willing to cry in front of the entire state like scorned lovers over a wham-bam coach who had a well-known, sullied reputation.
Bill Walker, a kid, knew the deal. He told the Cincinnati Enquirer that he wasn’t upset with Huggins.
“Not at all,” Walker was quoted as saying. “(Huggins) talked to me before he made the decision. He’s getting older, and that was going to be his last shot at going to his hometown. I wish him all the success in the world.”
So I’m supposed to believe that Huggins talked with a teenage player but didn’t talk to his assistant coaches? Yeah, they were left totally in the dark. Walker is the one guy who should be upset. He came to K-State to play for Huggins.
Please. Let’s be adults.
This is what happens to people with low self-esteem. They get exploited. They do desperate things. They believe whatever someone tells them. Kansas State and its athletic administrators have so little confidence in the school’s ability to compete in the Big 12 that they just turned over their basketball program to a bunch of kids and two coaches who agreed to baby-sit until the kids are ready for the NBA.
Maybe, if the Wildcats get extremely lucky, they’ll advance to the NCAA Tournament next year. Maybe, by some miracle, Beasley will stay at K-State for two years, and the Wildcats will have two winning seasons.
Those are maybes, big maybes. There is one certainty. This won’t end well. There are examples of this throughout the history of college basketball. Unfortunately, I truly believe this is the worst example.
To reach Jason Whitlock, call (816) 234-4869 or send e-mail to
[email protected]. For previous columns, go to KansasCity.com
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