Hi Wildcat fans! I'm a beaver fan, and Wildcat fan from afar.
With my Beaver program struggling the past two decades I always enjoy watching other programs progress to consistent tournaments and conference title races.
What I'm curious is what your guy's opinion is on why KState Hoops has been on the rise?
Bob absolutely pulled this program from the depths of mediocrity by bringing in better players - his sitting out a year to strengthen the relationship with Bill Walker (and OJ Mayo) with no NCAA restrictions helped as did hiring assistants like Dalonte Hill (Michael Beasley's, Rodney McGruder, Jamar Samuels and others AAU coach when they were kids) and Frank Martin (obvious So Fla connections brought in Denis Clemente and Angel Rodriquez and developed NYC connections brought in Curtis Kelly and Shane Southwell)
KState expenditures isn't high - 79th, behind most BCS teams. From 88-89 until Bob Huggins' arrival you finished .500 or below in conference and through 3 coaches have finished above .500 in every year since.
So I guess the obvious, is that credit can be given to Huggins. Its been awhile since Huggins' was hired, did he come to Kstate relatively cheap?
Bob came pretty cheap (about $1M per IIRC) but I believe the recruiting expenditures increased over 50% over the first 2 years or so. Also, KSU made Dalonte Hill the highest paid assistant in the country at $350k (eventually Hill made close $500k with bonuses i believe).
He obviously had his history at Cincy. Were there and have there been any renovations or facility construction that have added to your program's stability?
We added loge boxes at the top to the arena for 07-08 season and built a basketball training facility in 2012. I doubt any of it happens if hired our reported first choice, Greg McDermott. Season tickets sold out for Hug's season and most of Frank's season as well.
Did the mid 2000s lull in football help get all those season ticket holders when Huggins was hired or was the hire excitement enough? Did it just take commitment from the AD to make the big hire?
Anyways, thanks for any input. Good luck vs. Oklahoma tonight.
Like OSU, Kstate has a past of solid to great basketball that kinda fell off a cliff in the late 90s, almost the perfect mirror to the success of the football program. However, anytime the basketball team showed signs of life it wasn't uncommon to get a decent crowd of 8,000 or 9,000 for a conference home game. We were fortunate to get Huggins as the AD at the time has connection to him thru Eddie Folger. Also, Missouri could of hired him first after firing Quin Snyder mid season but MU's AD was afraid of Hug's "bad boy" rep and hired Mike Anderson instead.
To sum up, support for Kstate basketball has always been at an upper conference level in a Big 8/Big 12 that is and will always be football first. Good players are the most important part of the improving a bad to mediocre program and Bob and Frank did that with Dalonte's help - Jimmies and Joes, not Xs and Os in high major basketball
