For a while there Tuesday afternoon, there seemed to be only one obvious solution to what Bill Bradshaw suggested was the main problem with DePaul’s basketball program.
Rehire Joey Meyer.
After five years under Pat Kennedy, who resigned over the weekend, the athletic director said he was going to have to decide over the next few days what he wants the program to be, what it can be, and then reassess how to get it there.
Student-athletes have changed, Bradshaw and Kennedy said. And as a result, it sure sounded like the Blue Demons might be better off setting their sights on being a nice, respectable, middle-of-the-road team with occasional NCAA tournament aspirations and players of character who will stay in school and maybe even graduate.
Kind of like what Meyer was doing.
“Pat is a victim of his own success,” said Bradshaw, referring to the fact that Kennedy scored early with his first recruiting class of Quentin Richardson, Bobby Simmons and Lance Williams, thus raising unrealistic expectations for a team that went south quickly after Richardson left for the NBA.
The NBA was a recurring theme Tuesday, the scourge of professional sports blamed for luring players away and making it impossible to build a successful college program anymore–unless, of course, you count Duke, Kansas or any of 30 or so other schools that manage to succeed on a yearly basis despite the NBA’s lure.
“I know everyone says, `Enough with that NBA stuff,’ but it’s not that easy,” said Kennedy. “That’s a reality. When we’re doing our projections for the following year and you have somebody somewhere and all of a sudden that somebody isn’t there, it’s hard to have that replacement right at your hands when it’s May or June. Those are the things I couldn’t control. I don’t know how I could have changed that.”
As a result, said Bradshaw, DePaul might have to change its philosophy: “Maybe, looking back, you say, `We can’t get all those guys.’ Maybe you fill a role. Maybe [you take] that kid from New Trier who’s deciding between Lafayette and Cal, but maybe that kid would be here for three or four years [and you take him] because you need that. That’s what we missed. When those kids left, we didn’t have any senior leadership.”
So there’s a new twist. Now DePaul is blaming success for its failure.
There had to be some explanation after five years with no tangible progress, but Bradshaw probably wouldn’t want to hear the one Simmons offered Tuesday. “I wouldn’t use us leaving as an excuse,” he said. “I just think the guys you recruit should be ready to play every night. If you’re not going to play together, you’re not going to win many games.”
At least Meyer’s teams played hard and immeasurably smarter than the subsequent ones.
Kennedy did re-establish a connection with the Public League. And granted, it can’t be easy to have city kids remain focused while playing in the shadow of high school stardom, not to mention 20 or 30 of their closest friends and relatives.
“In Lawrence, Kan., you leave the game and go back to your room alone,” said Kennedy. “You leave here and everyone wants to know why you only played 10 minutes. You have to have kids who can handle those distractions.”
Presumably, Richardson was the only one who could, thus giving Kennedy and Bradshaw a ready alibi for now featuring a star player who gets suspended three times in one season.
Scarier still, however, is that the reaction to five disappointing years is resignation and more indecision.
“If Pat stayed, he’d say we need to mix and match,” said Bradshaw. “We got parts that didn’t mesh. We got great players, but we didn’t think about things like where they fit, how long they’re going to be here, what they want out of life.
“What I’m going to be doing the next two or three days is figuring out what we need right now. Where do we go? How do we do this and who’s the best to do this? We need to put that on paper. We need to figure out what those priorities are. Before we even think of names [of coaches], we have to say, what do we want? Now, how do they fit?
More Top Picks Hp Omen 16 Review
“I don’t think it’s unrealistic to have lofty goals. But to have those goals is one thing, to have expectations is another. Some people confuse them.”
And some people don’t have any choice but to be confused.