Colorado Springs – Without calling his first back-door play, new Colorado men’s basketball coach Jeff Bzdelik already has made quite an impression on his colleagues in the Big 12 Conference.
Speaking to the media during the ongoing Big 12 summer meetings at The Broadmoor, Kansas coach Bill Self said Bzdelik has fit right in and is a welcome addition to the conference.
“He’s very vocal. Coaches are very interested in his perspective,” Self said Wednesday. “Colorado is going to benefit from his presence. And I think the league will benefit. We’ve got coach (Bob) Knight. Rick Barnes has done great things (at Texas). But now we’ve got an NBA coach in our league, too.”
“In the meetings we had, he’s really a sharp, sharp guy,” Oklahoma State coach Sean Sutton said. “He’s really going to be good for the Big 12.”
Bzdelik knows one of the league’s coaches exceptionally well. Barnes and Bzdelik learned the trade as young assistants at Davidson in the late 1970s.
“The Big 12 is so competitive, so strong,” Bzdelik said Wednesday. “It’s filled with teams with great tradition, great coaches, great arenas to play in. It’s scary.”
Self predicted that Bzdelik will more than hold his own.
“I’ll tell you what, with strategy in a late-game, with situational things, he’ll be as good as anybody,” Self said. “The NBA has more close games than anybody else, and Jeff has all that experience.”
Signing of the times
The majority of Big 12 coaches support an early signing period for football, similar to basketball.
“But it’s not unanimous,” Kansas coach Mark Mangino said. “It’s something the coaches agreed that we’d continue dialogue.”
Some coaches prefer mid-summer for an early signing day; others favor a period in December. Dan Hawkins wants both.
“If a kid knows he wants to go to a certain school, why not let him go ahead and sign (early)?” said the CU coach.
Big 12 commissioner Kevin Weiberg said coaches appear to be split nationally on the issue. Pac-10 coaches are opposed to an early signing period and Atlantic Coast Conference coaches support it, he said.
“In my experience in this business, if you’re going to make changes in the recruiting calendar, it usually has to have very strong, unified support from the coaches,” Weiberg said.
Footnotes
Bzdelik confirmed he has received the signed letter of intent from his first recruit, 6-foot-4 shooting guard Cory Higgins, the son of Golden State Warriors general manager Rod Higgins. “He’s obviously been around the game for a long time, from a physical and cerebral standpoint,” said Bzdelik, who added he likely will bank the Buffs’ other two open scholarships for next year’s recruiting class. He gained three with the departures of freshmen Sean Kowal, Marc Van Burck and James Inge. Bzdelik will have five scholarships to offer for 2008-09, beginning this November during the early signing period. … CU’s Kathy McConnell-Miller said Big 12 women’s coaches support keeping their tournament in the same city as the men’s event.
Tom Kensler can be reached at 303-954-1280 or tkensler@denverpost.com.
