The Phenom

[Wayne23]

2/17: 74-50. Lipscomb jumped out to an early lead and we found ourselves playing catch up. We finally took our first lead with about 9 minutes to play in the first half and we just took off from there. It's great to win so decisively after losing by 12 there.

Ren Mert led us with 12, 13, 3, but 5 guys had 10 or more.

We played maybe our best D of the season, holding them to 31.6% from the field, and 21.4% on threes. +8 RBs.

Still 3 to play, 2 of them on the road, but the road games are both against weak teams. We need to go 3-0, and we should be able to do that if we keep our focus, play our games, and believe!

Excerpts from the Post Game Press Conference:

Q: Coach, your guys started out in a hole. Lipscomb came out strong. They were up 6 when a whistle blew and I heard you yell something. I couldn't quite make out what you said, but it seemed to turn things around. Can you tell us what you said?

Coach: Well, without the expletives (laughter) I told them I wasn't calling a time out. They knew what to do and I expected them to figure it out.

Q: Harsh?

Coach: Well, yeah, but it also showed them I believed they could do it and that's the way they took it, given what followed.

Q: This was maybe the biggest game of the season, which means the biggest game of your coaching career. Tell us what you did to get the kids ready.

Coach: We did all the same things we always do. The staff and i focused our practices on what we needed to do to stop them on D, and how to do what we needed to do to score points. Oh, and we always work on rebounding, too. We didn't do anything different and we didn't emphasize what a big game it was. All that would do is add pressure. We approached this game just like every other game.

Q: Well, it certainly worked. For a team without a senior this team usually shows a lot of poise. How does that happen?

Coach: Lots of reasons, certainly the never ending work and the never ending talk about believing in ourselves. But also, a few of our juniors are great leaders. Ren Mert has been a starter since his freshman year, and Reg Hayd started last season. Dens and Leon have been getting minutes for a couple of years. Our juniors give us senior leadership.

Q: It must be a good feeling to know that everybody is coming back next season.

Coach: It's a great feeling!

[Wayne23]

2/21: 79-65 at Loserty. Again tonight we fell behind early; way behind actually, 12 points. Again, I didn't call a timeout but yelled at them to do the things they're supposed to do. Eventually they did and we went into the locker room with a 1 point lead. The second half was all ours and we led by as many as 22.

Sub guard Joel Dens had his best game of the season, 20 and 7. 15, 14 for Mert, 15, 7 for Owen. +13 RBs.

I'm a little concerned that we've come out flat in our last couple of games. We'll work on that in practice.

Lipscomb got upset at home. We're up 1.5 on them with 2 to play. I like our position but the team that beat them at their place is here next. We'll be ready!

[Wayne23]

2/28: 107-92. This one was back and forth until we went on a run with 8 minutes left and broke it open; 20 lead changes, 12 ties.

Gary Owen was unstoppable, 44 and 10. 44 points!!! 21, 8, 3 for Sage, 16, 2, 7 for Sand. +10 RBs and an all but unbelievable 3 TOs for the entire game.

Lipscomb lost so we're up by 3 with 1 to play. HELL of a season! 23-5, 12-3.

[Wayne23]

3/3: 89-74 at Stetson to close out the regular season. We led all the way, by as many as 30. 22, 11 for Owen, who has become our go to player. 20, 6 for Mert, who is another go to guy. 17, 1, 5 for our outside threat, Shawn Sand. +6 RBs, only 8 TOs.

We win the league by 4 over Lipscomb, Jacksonville, and Bellarmine.

+7.5 PPG, +5.8 RBs, -1.6 TOs. #3 in the nation in PPG, #4 in RBs, #20 in Assists, #12 in Offensive Rating. Our D isn't great (#139) but the O and the RBs more than make up for it (#34 Net Rating).

Excerpts from Post Game Presser:

Q: Coach, 24-5, 13-3. Pretty amazing.

Coach: Yep, pretty amazing. But as of this moment we're 0-0. The second season is next and it's one and done. I need to get my kids to understand that the stakes just went up and we need to be as focused as we can possibly be, and we need to keep believing that we can do great things.

Q: Whoa, Coach! You've been talking all season about keeping the pressure low, and not making anything so huge that it adds pressure. I see a disconnect here.

Coach: It's all in how it's done. We're going to help our kids to understand that it's win or go home, but we're going to give them all the tools they need, and we're going to convince them that they have those tools. The pressure in the post season is inevitable but everybody feels it so it should equal out, at least at the conference level.

Q: And beyond the conference level?

Coach: Not thinking about that in the least. Thinking about the next game and nothing more.

[Wayne23]

3/4: We play #8 seed Loserty, 12-18, 6-10, in the quarter finals. Beat them by 23 and 14.

3/5: 95-74. Close for 18 minutes. Then we went on a run, went in up by 8, and never looked back.
26, 4 for Owen, 16, 15, 3 for Mert. 4 others had 11 or more. 17 TOs but they had 24.

It's #4 seed Bellarmine, 17-14, 9-7, in the semis. We won by 2 at home. Lost by 2 there, so this is a team that gives us trouble, more so than anyone else in our conference. They play a 2-3, which has worked very well against our inside game. On O they are very deliberate; they work to find a good shot and don't take a shot until they find a good one.

We're working hard on moving without the ball on O, and on playing tight D for the entire possession. Patience may be the key here.

[Wayne23]

3/6: 60-82. Huge disappointment. Feels like we were run over by a freight train. Down 6 at the half and i thought we had a shot. I gave them the plan in the locker room, having made only one adjustment, then watched as they got destroyed. The Bellarmine C wound up with 26 and 7. No one lit up Owen like that all season. That and the bench were the difference, as well as -8 on the boards. We shot only 32.9%, our 2nd worst shooting night of the season. Tough, tough night.

Did we do enough to get invited somewhere? We think we did but given the poor rating our conference has, it's no guarantee.

3/7: #6 seed North Florida beat #4 seed Bellarmine by 20 to win the ASC tourney.

[Wayne23]

3/12: We are in the BIG DANCE!!! #8 West, We face #9 Howard, 25-7. First time KSU has ever been here.

3/13: After looking at the video we don't match up well with this team, especially inside. Our big guys are really going to need to step up. A win would cap off our season. It would put us up against #1 seed Xavier, but one step at a time.

3/17: 75-85. We scored the first 12 points but we struggled after that and were down 10 at the half. In the second half we couldn't get it to single digits.
Owen led us with 27 and 6. Hayd had 14, 3, 6. But they shut everyone else down. 19 TOs didn't help.

Excerpts from the Post Game Presser:

Q: Coach, no one could possibly call this anything but a terrific season, but the post season wasn't as good. Any explanation for that?

Coach: It would have been nice to win our tournament. There's no doubt about that. I'll certainly take my share of the blame. I already know that next year I'm going to ask Tank to set us up with a more challenging pre-conference schedule. I want wins, so I don't want it to be so challenging that we won't get them, but maybe a stronger pre-conference schedule would prepare us better for post season play.

I've also toyed with the idea of having us move to a slightly stronger conference but given the bad loss to Bellarmine, maybe we have unfinished business here in the Sun. I'm going to think about all of that and discuss it with my staff and with Tank. We have a few weeks before we need to decide.

As to the games against Bellarmine and Howard, we certainly didn't play the type of basketball that we had played for most of the season. I thought I had some answers after the Bellarmine game but given how we played against Howard, I guess I didn't. The answer is always work harder, think deeply, believe in ourselves, and we're going to keep doing that.

Q: What are your plans for the next few weeks, Coach? Any vacations on the schedule?

Coach: I'm actually going to take a few days off and head up to Massachusetts to see my family. Then it's back to work by the end of the week.

Q: How about longer term plans? I'm guessing there may be some job offers.

Coach: I'll be right here at KSU next season and I'm very excited about that. Thanks everybody.

[Wayne23]

4/3: #3 Xavier is the national champ.

4/4: Awards: Gary Owen is ASC POY and 1st team. Ren Mert also made the 1st team. Shawn Sand made 2nd team. And they'll all be back! I get Conf. COY. Yay!!!

4/9: TP goes from 4 to 14.

LOTS of calls about coaching vacancies, even from some pretty good schools. Thanks, but I'm staying.

4/23: I ask Tank for a facilities upgrade. He said money is tight. I said that we'd quadrupled the revenue for ticket and concession sales. He said he needed to think about it.

4/25: Tank thought... and said no. He said the added revenue was a real help and it meant that some of the programs that were barely able to survive were now on a firmer footing. He said if our success continues next year he'll make sure to do what he can. In some ways I'm upset but hey, if a kid gets to play Div. I tennis, or volleyball, or whatever, I guess I have to say I'm in favor of that.

25-7, regular season title, spot in the NCAA tourney. I'm pretty pleased.

[Wayne23]

5/1: Moving to the Southern Conference. So is Bellarmine so we keep the rivalry. Slightly more challenging conference.

#81 recruiting class. Pretty good!

We're going to be an experienced team this year. New conference will bring new challenges but I'm looking forward to it!

We buy the Southeast and Atlantic East basic again.

I had a nice visit with family and friends in Massachusetts. Hadn't seen any of those people since I got the job a little over a year ago. I want mom and dad to take some vacation days during the season and come down to see a game or two but dad is the stay at home type. I think mom would like to come. I tried to talk here into coming with Aunt Bev. I think she might. I'd be happy to put them up in a hotel.

Last year I set them up so they could watch the games, which are televised on KSU's college station, and I think they watched just about all of our games. I called them every weekend and the way they talked about our players, I'm sure they watched at least some games.

6/5: Red shirting 2 frosh.

No open spots for transfers.

6/25: We decide to go to the Big Apple and the Memphis Hoop.

6/26: 5 scholarships. I'd like 3 guards and 2 bigs or vice versa.

8/10: The summer is flying by. We hosted a small camp for high school and middle school kids back in late June. We had 48 kids and it was great. I got Tank's permission to do this when I got hired last year and we promoted it in a limited way throughout the season. 48 kids is a good turnout for the first year. Hopefully it will grow.

The camp also allowed me to employ my players for a week and to see the freshmen and get to know them.

There are "Captain's Practices" going on pretty much every day. All of my guys are in summer school- every summer. They take two courses during each of the two summer sessions and our tutors are in place, as is study hall. That way they only need to take three courses per semester and can still graduate on time. Lots of schools do this.

[Wayne23]

8/21: We offer to 2 PGs, 2 PFs, and a C.

9/11: Recruiting Coach Ben Flet and I are making lots of calls to the five guys we've offered to, as well as some others who are showing interest. We're coordinating our efforts because we don't want to annoy anyone by calling too often.

9/18: We got two really good ones, our top 2, both in state. A PG, #74, and a PF, #80. Still definitely in the running for the other three.

A little more challenge in the pre-conf. schedule.

9/25: Got 2, lost 1. Got a PF, #91, and a C, #192. Need a guard.

10/2: Got the SG, #110. Great recruiting class!

1st day of practice. We're both good and deep inside. We're good but thin outside. I should have recruited more guards but you have to take what you can get.

11/13: The season opener is in a few days. I think we're ready. This is a veteran lineup with 4 returning starters. The 5th got demoted but he wants his job back.

It's senior Reg Hayd back at PG, junior Shawn Sand back at SG, and senior Joel Dens back as the #3 guard.

Senior Ren Mert is back at SF, junior Gary Owen will play some PF, some C, and freshman Rah Celk, the only new guy to crack the lineup, will also play some PF, some C.

Rick Sage, who started last year at PF, will sub inside, as will Hank Leon, who was the #1 big off the bench last year; he'll be 2nd this year.