BOISE, Idaho — Colorado’s five Division I teams didn’t get within cross country bus fare of the NCAA Tournament, but Friday’s Utah State- Marquette game definitely had a Colorado State flavor.
Not only was former CSU coach Stew Morrill (1992-98) coaching Utah State, Mar- quette assistant coach Dale Layer coached CSU from 2001-07, and Marquette coach Buzz Williams was Layer’s assistant there from 2001-04.
Needless to say, with CSU 16-47 the last two years, they’re all in better places. Layer, who led CSU to its only NCAA Tournament berth since Morrill left, truly feels for second-year CSU coach Tim Miles.
“It’ll take a full-time commitment from everybody, everywhere,” Layer said after Marquette’s 58-57 win. “I think they’ve got a real good coach and a good person. The AD’s a good guy, but they need everybody all the time. You’re going against a lot of odds in that league and some established programs.”
I asked him what specific commitments they need.
“Everything,” he said. “Facilities. Financial. Fan support. Administration. Students. Boosters. They all have to get behind Tim Miles. He deserves it. That’s the only way to get it done. He cannot be on an island.”
After being fired at CSU two years ago, Layer joined another ex-CSU coach, Ritchie McKay, at Liberty. When Tom Crean left Marquette for Indiana, Williams was promoted and called Layer.
Williams himself had an interesting route to Milwaukee. He left CSU in 2004 to be Billy Gillispie’s assistant at Texas A&M before becoming New Orleans’ head coach in 2006. Following the 2007 season, he left because of a dispute over the school’s commitment and hooked on at Marquette.
After only one year, the former CSU aide is a head coach in the Big East. I asked Layer if he ever expected anything like this from Williams.
“No question,” he said. “He was awfully young then and he had a reputation as a recruiter. But I knew him for four years, and I knew he could X and O and could motivate. I knew it was only a matter of time that he’d be a head coach.”
Add Williams.
One thing I noticed about Williams: He’s a human stat machine. He opened his postgame media conference by spewing out tons of numbers about Utah State.
“They average 72 points, they average 72 possessions and over the last 10 years in the 86 losses that they have had, 70 of those have been with a score of less than 72.”
Huh?
“In the first half, we had 18 stops out of 27 possessions,” he continued. “In the second half, in the first eight minutes we only had two stops, they had . . . ”
He’s really into this. He breaks a basketball game down to one or two key statistics.
“We’re starting to absorb it even more,” Marquette guard Wesley Matthews said. “I know the first time he started doing it, we would look at each other and smile like, man, he’s making these numbers up.”
Formisano at Utah State.
Matt Formisano, a second- team all-state pick at Heritage High in 2004, is a junior at Utah State who averaged 3.2 points, including zero Friday, in 34 games for the Aggies. He redshirted in 2005, then went on a two-year Mormon mission to Mexico City before returning to the team last season.
