From the Bench - Missing the Days of being Called SOB

Missing the Days of Being Called a Turd and SOB

Robert Shields

The sports editor of the statewide paper on Sunday leveled a charge against Razorback basketball coach John Pelphrey saying that he does not have control of his team. I wonder if Wally Hall is close enough to the team to make that call, and this sounds like the same cliché Wally and others have used in the past when they begin the campaign to get a coach fired.

I think all coaches in this day and age struggle with control of their teams because they are all dealing with 18-year-old prima donna knuckleheads who have been placed on a pedestal in high school by the recruitniks. It’s just a matter of degree. I assume in the eyes of Mr. Hall it has reached a level of such a lack of control it has become detrimental to the team.

Wally gave some anecdotal evidence to back his claim, but he easily could have also pointed to the stuff that started the year with an event that happened at a fraternity house that kept some players from the court for a period of time.

What we all know is that Pelphrey will be back next season -- a season that he will have to win or be replaced by maybe someone even worse. I have to believe the UofA athletic department is in a cash-flow crunch that has precipitated the ticket price increases in some sports. I do not believe that it’s broke, but maybe its assets in the Razorback Foundation are not producing as they once were and maybe fundraising has not been as strong.

A lack of cash flow will hamper hiring a top-flight basketball coach, plus the UofA is radioactive after the firing of Nolan, the racial-discrimination suit, the lack of winning, the firing of Stan Heath, the one-day hiring of Dana Altman, and then hiring basically the only guy willing to take the job in Pelphrey.

I do not question Pelphrey’s knowledge of basketball, but I also don’t know if Pelphrey can get the job done. I think he learned some things under Rick Petino and Billy Donovan and that his recruiting has been decent enough that the Hogs have equal or better talent than the teams in the SEC West. Sometimes all these things seem to come together like last year when the Hogs beat top 10 teams in Oklahoma and Texas. Then during the winning streak in the SEC this year, it seemed to come together again.

But a lot of other times, the team comes apart. I can’t explain why it happens. There is something missing. Wally seems to believe it’s a lack of coaching control. Regardless, the failure falls on the coach’s shoulders.

Personally, I am missing the days of Nolan calling me names like SOB and turd. He had one losing season and was out. The new standard at the UA since then seems to be that you can rack up quite a few before you are let go.

I don’t know if the basketball program can be resurrected any time soon. Great players right now will avoid the SEC because it’s not a premier basketball conference. So besides Arkansas not winning, it also faces the hurdle of getting good players in a conference right now with some challenges (with Kentucky being the exception).

The Razorback basketball heroics of 15 years ago are long forgotten with today’s youth. You may as well be talking about the national championship Butch Lee and Jerome Whitehead won for Marquette. It is ancient history to the kids in high school today.

For the basketball program to return, it will take a turn of events that are unseen in today’s crystal ball. The genesis may start in two years because the recruitniks say the class that will be seniors next year in Arkansas high school basketball are one of a kind. The Razorback basketball program had to start in its own backyard some 35 years ago with the triplets of Sidney Moncrief, Ron Brewer, and Marvin Delph. The bottom line is the basketball program is back to where it was before Eddie Sutton arrived on the Hill.

The question remains, if Pelphrey has another losing season will he be around to reap the benefits of what is supposed to be a great recruiting class next season?



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