Pound of Cure - From the Bench

A Pound of Cure for the Dismal and Abysmal

Robert Shields

Last week, I mentioned that an ounce of prevention could have saved Razorback basketball fans the pound of cure they are currently living. The firing of Nolan Richardson was handled about as poorly as it could have been done, and there is a lot of blame to spread around for that entire episode.

The moment Nolan headed out the door, the basketball program went into a tailspin that it is yet to get out of. Fans are about to finish up what has been a dismal and abysmal decade of Razorback basketball. It is hard to find a highlight in that entire time period – maybe the victory over a beleaguered Indiana team in the NCAA tournament. But that’s it unless you want to count the time the coach with the thin mustache showed up to do a half-hearted Hog call and then told Frank I don’t think so.

Since 1985 when he was hired, Nolan had only two losing seasons – the first as he was trying to coach a team with a litany of problems while an illustrious panel of experts in the media and stands proclaimed he was the worst coach in the history of basketball, and the last season in which he was fired.

In between? One national championship, another national championship game appearance, a total of three Final Fours, another Elite Eight, another two Sweet Sixteens, four 30-win seasons, 13 NCAA tournament appearances, and oh yeah, all the while revolutionizing the game in the SWC and SEC with the much-emulated 40 Minutes of Hell style of play. He fed the monster like no coach in any sport in Razorback history other than John McDonnell’s legendary run in track.

So we fired him. And in the haste to back out the car, the program ran over itself.

The basketball team has been so poor that the media people are hardly even writing about it. I dare say that if John Robert Starr were alive today, he’d be writing about another trip to Louisiana to see brother Joe and not even care about trying to get another coach fired.

I keep waiting for others to write something interesting about Razorback basketball, but it never comes. Jim Harris from Arkansas Sports 360, where are you on basketball (not that I blame you)? Even for me in the last few years, it has been better to mostly skip basketball and write about football during these winter months because no one, including all the virulent Nolan haters who couldn’t wait to run him out of town, cares about basketball or has any idea when the next game is.

What is most painful is that the SEC in basketball is dreadful. Even Nolan’s worst teams in the past would have dominated this conference at the level that it currently rests. Brandon Dean, Teddy Gipson, and Jannero Pargo would be the best backcourt in the West this season.

The problems run much deeper now than in 2002 when the fans, boosters, and administrators decided Nolan was no longer good enough for them. People don’t even care anymore. They have found other things to do and other things to spend their time and money on. A culture change has occurred over the last decade for fans in Razorback Nation, and it is not good. If you go to a wedding reception these days during basketball season, not only will there not be a TV with the game on somewhere, but the groomsmen won’t even know there is a game on.

The first thing that I would do is fire the coach. The right hire will make a difference. I think John Pelphrey is a good coach, but he provides no hope to the fans now that he has several seasons of baggage. They have lost faith in him. You hire a new coach if for no other reason than to provide what fans are left the illusion that there might be hope. You have to start somewhere. ASU does it all the time.

The difference is that the UA has something that ASU does not. It has tradition. Even though many fans of today thumb their nose at tradition, it matters. When you fall back on tradition, it’s like going home. The Hogs need to go home and regroup for a little while.

Where’s home? Home is Barnhill Arena. The team that won the national championship was recruited out of the Barn before Bud Walton existed. The Hogs were formidable in Barnhill even in shaky years. In Nolan’s second year, a bad team with “old man” Tim Scott beat a good Kansas team with Danny Manning. That’s not ever going to happen in Bud Walton again with these bad teams. Conversely, pick a team (my favorite was Coastal Carolina) that bused over and came into Bud Walton and stomped the Hogs. That ever happening in Barnhill? No chance.

A really bad Razorback team had to meet a really good ASU team in 1987. The Hogs fell down in the game by almost 20 points in the second half. The game was over, but the fans in the Barn would not allow it to happen. Cannon Whitby hit a three, another Razorback player jacked up an ASU star, the game went into overtime, and the Hogs won. Had they lost, odds are Frank Broyles would have fired Nolan and we would have been deprived of all those glorious years.

If ASU took this team into overtime at Bud Walton Arena, I’m not so sure of the outcome or what happens to the program in the wake.

When your foundation has been destroyed, you have to start building a new one somewhere. Bud Walton is nicer and bigger, but that is not always better for now. Duke still plays at smaller Cameron Indoor. You cannot generate enthusiasm in a two-thirds empty building for your program. I know that they have won all their home games this year, but that is really an anomaly, and does it really matter when your team is not so great and very few people care?

In 1993, Jim Robken filled a glass bowl in Barnhill after a win over LSU with what was supposed to be the spirit of Barnhill. When I look in that glass bowl that is now residing in Bud Walton, I see nothing but emptiness, just like the seats in the arena.


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P.S. Don’t send me notes that Arkansas had just beaten No. 19 Vanderbilt. One win does not erase a decade of bad basketball since the departure of Nolan.