Waning Greatness
February 16, 2009 at 6:05am by HogBaller
Filed under Arkansas Razorbacks, Basketball
You don’t need to be a regular visitor to the message boards to know there are some serious problems brewing within the Arkansas Razorback basketball program. So what is a fan to make of the most recent events? Marcus Monk declared ineligible and the best point guard to put on a Hog uniform in a while suspended indefinitely?
As a fan…”Wow” is probably the first reaction…followed quickly by a “What is going on?” and finally a “How in the world did we get to this point?” The once-feared and proud Razorback basketball program is not just down, but looking very much like out. Like a “has been…never will be again” type program.
Kind of like the Houston Cougars under Guy V. Lewis. Remember Phi Slamma Jamma? I sure do, but what happened after Drexler and gang left? Yep, that’s right crickets. As a very loyal and passionate basketball fan, I fear the same insignificance on the horizon for Hawgball.
Since Nolan Richardson left, it looks like no one is capable of bringing back the magic that made Barnhill and Bud Walton such feared venues…and had teams beaten before they took the court. Let’s face it, those are great memories, but they are starting to sound like the football program and its championship from 1964…distant memories most of us don’t recall and neither does the rest of the nation. To bring that point home, in March we will celebrate the 15th anniversary of the National Championship team. Folks that’s 15 years ago. And really the last 10 years have been subpar in my opinion.
We have the fanbase and booster support to compete with any program in the nation. I’ll say that again…WE HAVE THE FANBASE AND BOOSTER SUPPORT TO COMPETE WITH ANY PROGRAM IN THE NATION. At one time not too long ago, the Arkansas Razorback basketball program was regarded as the eighth best overall from a historical perspective. I’m talking “Top 10 All-Time” folks. What has happened, and why are we relying on hiring up-and-comers to revive such a prestigious sport?
Now…I will concede that Eddie Sutton was an up-and-comer from Creighton. As was Nolan Richardson from Tulsa. But both coaches had a track record (albeit short) of being hot commodities that were destined to be winners. Remember the program was nothing to brag about before Sutton accepted the job. But after firing Richardson, we should have gone after a big time coach. The fans and program had earned as much. Instead, we took chances hiring both Stan Heath and now Pelphrey. We didn’t with Sutton and Richardson…they were going to succeed wherever they coached.
Now, that doesn’t mean John Pelphrey won’t turn out to be a great coach. But for the most optimistic fan — think Rick Schaeffer — this season has even him wondering if Pel can get it done. A 1-9 record in this year’s SEC is not just pitiful, it’s absolutely unacceptable under any — and I repeat — any circumstances.
So where do we go from here and what does the future hold? To that I would answer: recruiting and experience. We have got to get better players in here sooner rather than later, and this staff has to get better as well. If that can be done over the summer, then we may start to see the return to greatness so many of us not only anticipate, but expect. If that cannot be done then, unfortunately, I think we will be going back to the drawing board again. Except this time I hope Jeff Long does what Frank Broyles would not, and that’s hire a proven winner.
No doubt 1-9 is real reason for concern, not just for this year but for the next two. It is real cause for concern for John, his assistants, and the razorback nation. But, I don’t think we are at the point of losing the program.
Anytime you hire a young coach you are taking a big chance. Billy the Kid came out of nowhere to make Florida a national power from nothing. Yes, Nolan and Eddie each in their day were looked at as a sure thing of sorts. Nolan would have been fired after his second year if not for a very sick little girl.
I don’t remember who was available when Heath shut down the interview process. We went after big names before John but of course we end up with the Altman disaster.
Frank stayed way too long. White was a joke. We are lucky we are not worse off. No one is going to open firejohnpelphry.com. We are going to have to recruit very hard, very well. If John is losing it, that is up to Long help him right the ship, change direction.
Pelphry may have shown up a little too glad to be here and not enough ready to go to work. We shall see if he can save himself or if he is just a footnote in college basketball. But, that is not the hogs future hanging in the balance, only John’s. He will get another year. If he wins 6 to 8 conference games he will get a fourth, less than 5 and he may not.
Yep, its ugly. But, Arkansas is two years away from its best home state basketball class in history. John will show enough to be here to reap he rewards or they will bring in someone who will.
We will be back.
Does anyone remember all the knashing of teeth and hand wringing that Big Blue would come get their boy? Gillispie was floundering in December and we were giant killers. It was only a matter of months before Billy was fired and UK would bring home their favorite son.
Now, six weeks on, the Hogship is on the shoals of despair and UK looks competent, even though they only have one real player. We have lost Monk, through what appears to be a bureaucratic travesty, we have a snotty nosed point guard who thinks he is more important than he is, we have a very slow power forward and a skinny center and we have no bench depth that can be seen with the naked eye.
So, what do you expect? This is a work in progress and all the naysayers need to take a pill or two.
I am not one ready to throw Pel out with the bath water….or Ostrom for that fact either. It takes time. Is Fortson firey? You bet. Does he want the others around him to play better, smarter? Absolutely. Does he know the proper way to express that? My guess is no, and there’s the rub.
Did Norman Dale throw Buddy out of practice? Did he sit Ray, and finish a game with 4 players to prove a point? All of this is growing pains and nothing more. They’ll get there. Most just don’t have the patience to stay the course.
Remember…Nolan might have been fired had we not staged a miraculous comeback in the NIT against Arkansas State. How soon we forget our own history.
I actually liked the way we played against Kentucky. We were way out gunned, but at least we had ball movement and player movement most of the time instead of a point guard playing one on three. Most of the game I thought we did have an offense – unlike most games this year when we played mostly one on one.
This team sets was too many lazy screens to get people open consistently. The post guy can’t establish position on the blocks. I sense an unease with the coaching that is joining the unease with the recruiting.
A few really good players can solve all of this.
What I see currently out of Razorback basketball is a paradox. We can’t win with out better players, we can’t recruit top talent unless we’re winning. With that in mind I also don’t think any coach in his right mind is going to walk into our situation if Pel gets fired after this year, or next for that matter. Like Hogblogger said we are about 3 good players from being a very good team, a team that has the depth to press for 40 minutes and a team that has this size/speed to play the 2-3 zone correctly. I say give Pel the time untill this current class is Seniors, if we haven’t seen year by year improvement by then it may be time to look else where. Until then, patience is a virtue.
Pel ain’t goin nowhere. I think he’s the right man. He’s young and agressive and is a fighter. There’s young talent on the team that will look like night and day in a couple of years. We’ve got to get some bangers that will help the guards out on both the offensive & defensive end. We weren’t picked last in the SECW just because we’ve got no friends, it was because our team is barely out of high school. The future is bright.
I know everyone is pretty uneasy with our current situation, and I’m the first to admit to feeling a little depressed myself, but it’s way too early to start second guessing our head coach.
John Pelphrey is in a terrible situation with this team, but it’s not unfixable.
Does anyone remember when Nolan brought in the “Big O” and May-Day?
He already had 3 years of implementing his system of play, and not a lot of Hog fans were all that thrilled about it either.
Once things started turning around, because of the newly found talent Richardson was finally able to recruit, combined with some of the exsperience and depth he’d already been coaching for 3 years, critical fans (including myself) started raising their eyebrows a little more, and running their mouths a little less.
Remember guys, Oliver Miller, Todd Day, and Lee Mayberry didn’t have the resposibilities then our current Freshmen have now.
Mayberry may have started from the beginning, but I don’t remember Miller and Day ever starting a game until midway through their Freshman year.
They had time to sit and learn, even though they were more talented than the most exsperiensed players on the team.
They didn’t have the immediate pressure to carry their team like Fortson, Clarke, and Henry are doing, and even when they did start, a lot of the time they weren’t playing from behind, which is one of the worst situations to have when coaching Freshmen.
We all have to have a little faith in John Pelphrey, no matter how bad it looks, and just to drive home the point I’m trying to make, everyone ask yourself this question:
If you could have any other coach in America, give them the exact same players, with the exact same situation, (exspulsion of and suspensions of 3 different Freshman, and the Marcus Monk episode) hand him the keys to this team and say “Ok buddy, fire her up!” who would it be, and what would the exspectations be?
Yes, I’m disappoint in how the hogs is doing in conference play this season. But some hog fans are calling for Coach Pelphrey’s job, but I bet they were singing his praises when the hogs beat Oklahoma and Texas. My late father who was also a Razorback fan called these fans fair-weather fans, which are fans who are happy with the Coach and the team when they are winning, but calling for the coach’s job when the team is losing.
If you remember correctly when Frank Broyle fired Nolan Richardson Broyle told the hog fans the university and him would take their time in getting a top name coach for the job, but they didn’t. Before you knew it; they had hire Stan Heath. Yeah,a big name coach,.I don’t think so. Broyle and company kept Heath around for four years. This was too many years for me personally. If Broyle and company had not rush to hire Heath we might have gotten a big name coach back then, but with Heath’s record after four years there was no way Arkansas could get a big name coach.
If Broyle had hire John Pelphrey instead of Stan Heath Arkansas might be a powerhouse in college basketball now like they were under Sutton and Richardson. Instead of going through growing pain with players with very limited playing time from last year and so many freshmen on his team.
Does fans not remember what Coach Pelphrey’s and his team did last season with Stan Heath’s former players? Coach Pelphrey just need to recruit more kinds of his players and he will do this. I think next season we will see a different ball team, because we will have experience players and young players to make a good Razorback team. Coach Pelphrey is a good young coach and Arkansas was lucky to get him. So hog fans please be patience with Coach Pelphrey and his team. I think Arkansas Razorback Basketball Program and their fans will see brighter days from Coach Pelphrey. If Coach Pelphrey teams don’t improve in a couple years then a coaching change may be needed, but not now and maybe not even after next season. .
Its easy to get caught up in the emotion or the timing or a bunch of other issues. But if you are going to take a look at Pelphry there is one issue that is beginning to concern me.
We all loved John for several reasons. One way to sum those up is that he was the anti-stanheath. Poor Stan was a sweet guy who came off as a pretty good recruiter. He was constipated as a floor coach or as a head coach. His teams played lazy, with poor chemistry, and little basketball IQ but, he put some talent on the floor.
John comes along with his passion and determination, his Kentucky pedigree, retired jersey and all of that. He is firey as bench coach and does good coach speak. His teams play hard and with some chemistry but so far with poor basketball IQ and less talent than one would hope.
You can say great things about Eddie and Nolan. They were wonderful coaches in many ways, very human in others. As different as they were though, they both had a philosophy that relied on some form of Xs and Os. That seems to be the one place where Pelphry is too much like Stan. He talks a good game but you don’t see much basketball smarts on the floor.
I’m sure that is hard to do with 8 players when the other teams have 13. I know it will improve next year.
Fans, I suppose are made to grumble. I am still very confident in Coach Pelfrey. Give him time. Adversity comes to all teams from time to time. The above history lessons are key. Just as in football. Many Arkansas fans wanted the since fired Tubby and Bowden, and then wanted the WF coach. Then all of a sudden two of the three are gone.. for now.. and the other one’s glamour is mostly gone. I do not think that here was anything wrong with these coaches. Fans are fickle. WVU stayed in the tank for years after Bowden of FSU left and look what he did. Just as he was turning the corner in WV they were about to can him but he smartly took over lowly FSU and turned it into a respected program. However, it appears that he may just be staying too long (however, it is hard to quit a good job), but this fall may vendicate him again. The financial tank in the world comes at a bad time for Pel in that AD’s get antsy when fans do not show up. However, AD Long stated he would have hired Coach Pelfrey.
BlindHog – it’s the basketball IQ part that is bugging me. We definitely need more / better players, so maybe it will be more visible with more talent on the floor. As I’ve said, a few more good player will solve a lot.
I agree. It is hard to score off your defense if you have no players to play defense. It is a chicken/egg deal to a degree. But simple things like feeding the post and playing inside out should be job one for this team.
It is not a good sign. We’ll see.
I think once we get past the “Freshman” ordeal, and start playing smarter, then throw in the fact that we’ll have a few more players next season, we should see a much improved ball club next year.
I believe Sanchez, Moore, and Clark will all improve inside the paint before next season, and I believe Fortson will become a more reliable floor general.
If all of this can happen, I have no doubt that things will start opening up for Rotnie Clarke to be a more consistant shooter, and be a better overall player.
The addition of the Adams kid could be a big help in that regard too, if he commits.
Powell will give us even more muscle inside the paint, and could be good enough to see a lot of playing time.
We’ve just got to stay the course guys. It should get a lot better.