Bhn Bzz: Bff Bkb Bss B Bz!
Wait. Can we buy a few vowels and examine a few other coaching candidates first?
Before Jeff Bzdelik is anointed by CU athletic director Mike Bohn as the king of the Buffaloes’ court and the coronation parade proceeds north on Interstate 25 and west on Highway 36, I’d like to offer the one dissenting opinion.
The current Air Force coach and former Nuggets coach is a nice choice, but Colorado shouldn’t have to play nice. This will be the most important selection of a basketball coach in Boulder since the late Sox Walseth took over in 1956.
Walseth won three conference titles – three more than the five coaches who followed – and went to three NCAA Tournaments (when only one conference team could qualify). That’s one more than all who came after. In four seasons his teams went unbeaten at home – four times more than his successors.
Will Bzdelik win the Big 12 or the conference tournament, go to the NCAAs regularly, win all his home games, recruit All- Americans, get students, alumni and the general public from Denver excited and sell out the arena?
I don’t think so.
It doesn’t really matter what I think, though, because when Bzdelik and the Falcons are finished with the NIT, he will be interviewed and likely offered the job, given that Mike Dunlap has dropped out.
Buffs’ buyers, beware. Bzdelik will escort CU to the middle of the conference pack, and mediocrity will become you.
Air Force is a fit for Bzdelik, and he should stay there. Colorado will cause fits for Bzdelik, and he should not go there.
There is no disputing that Bzdelik has coached remarkably well at the Air Force Academy in his two seasons, reaching the NCAA Tournament and the NIT, amassing a home winning streak of 30 and pushing his undersized players to overachieve a 48-15 record in two seasons. He did accomplish the feats with his predecessors’ players. Four starters are seniors, and the fifth is a junior.
Bzdelik recruited two outstanding (high school championship) players from the Denver area – freshmen Grant Parker and Avery Merriex. The Zoomies do shoot well (49 percent from the field, 76 percent from the free-throw line), and they play a smart Princeton offense. And the Air Force did a fly-by Wednesday night on Austin Peay.
Air Force blew out Colorado in Boulder, 84-46, and was 5-3 (4-1 nonconference) against eventual NCAA Tournament teams.
But here comes the but.
The Falcons collapsed down the stretch this season and lost in the first round of the Mountain West tournament to Wyoming, again. A virtually certain NCAA team disappeared into the NIT. Bzdelik hasn’t proved he can win with players he recruits.
His Nuggets teams were 17-65, 43-39 (one playoff series) and 13-15 before he was dismissed in 2004 and hired by Air Force in 2005.
Doesn’t seem bad.
However, CU’s next coach must be a gregarious sort who can get people involved in and enthusiastic about the program – in the wake of the Ricardo “General” Patton period. Bzdelik’s slowdown offensive scheme will not succeed big time in the Big 12 on the road against Kansas, Texas, Texas A&M and Kansas State. He has to change it. Bzdelik can’t win without recruiting height. He has to adjust to it.
Bohn and his search committee must consider others before they impulsively hand the keys to the CU gym to Bzdelik.
Bohn says he wants someone with connections to Colorado.
But what if Tubby Smith is available?
Or what about one of the sharp coaches in the NCAA Tournament – Old Dominion’s Blaine Taylor, Gregg Marshall of Winthrop, Reggie Theus of New Mexico State, Scott Sutton of Oral Roberts or North Texas’ Johnny Jones? Shouldn’t they be discussed?
Or what if Rodney Terry can be lured to Boulder? Terry is the Texas assistant who heavily recruited Kevin Durant and the rest of the Longhorns’ freshman class. Terry is being recruited for several head coaching jobs, none of which is equal to what CU could be.
CU has waited through the lunacy of an entire, awful season to hire a new coach. There’s nothing wrong with waiting through the madness of March to find Mr. Right.
Staff writer Woody Paige can be reached at 303-954-1095 or wpaige@denverpost.com.
