Out of the Pouch

By: Dan Stroud

Posted: 2/4/08

Sitting in the interview room on Jan. 24 after Oral Roberts (ORU) University had kicked the living daylights out of our Kangaroos turned out to be pretty tough. Sitting just two chairs down from this reporter was UMKC Athletics Director Tim Hall.

The man who confidently came to Kansas City 11 months ago to rebuild a moribund UMKC athletic program was perhaps at his lowest point. ORU had not just beaten the Roos as many of you might recall, they had pummeled them unmercifully.

There really was no other way to describe a 75-47 drubbing at the hands of your biggest rival. When it was suggested rather sheepishly that it had been a tough night, Hall, who had been sitting and staring at the ground, sat up and shot as straight as one could.

He told this reporter that ORU was simply more athletic than UMKC and that needed to change. Head coach Matt Brown walked in shortly thereafter, drained and downtrodden, but still unwilling to make excuses.

He knew the answer as well if not better than his boss did. There was work to be done, and the labor would be long and difficult.

Both Hall and Brown came in with high expectations for their inaugural season. Their desire to win was so great in fact, that many of the UMKC faithful who had steered clear of the program over the years, began inching their way back into the fold.

All of us wanted to believe that the Kangaroos would come charging into the 2007-08 season and make loud decibels of noise, especially when the league season began.

Hall and Brown should have known better. We all should have known better.

It's necessary for us to realize that this isn't just happening to us, though. Many first year NCAA Division I basketball coaches take over programs with great expectations for quick turnarounds in their program's fate.

The fans want to believe that the right coach can produce a squad like the one Gene Hackman coached in the movie "Hoosiers." It rarely happens that way, and only when everything aligns perfectly.

University of Michigan head basketball coach John Beilein (Brown's old boss and mentor) stepped away from a successful West Virginia University program to try on a new hat. His record in year one is 5-16, 1-8 in the Big Ten. His former team is 16-6, 5-4 in the Big East.

University of Kentucky head basketball coach Billy Gillespie left a Texas A&M University on the rise, to grab the reins of a mythical basketball school that had fallen on hard times.

Gillespie started poorly but has begun to pick up some of the pieces. The Wildcats are 10-9, 4-2 in the SEC and on the prowl.

Kentucky has not had the injury problems Brown has suffered, and had a bit more talent than Beilein did when he arrived in Ann Arbor. By the way, the school he left behind is 18-4, 4-3 in the Big 12 and surely headed for March Madness while he sits home watching.

Anyone who doesn't believe that Gillespie and Beilein will challenge for seats in the Final Four in the coming years is naive. Anyone who thinks Beilein's student of 10 years doesn't have the mettle to get the Kangaroos into the NCAA tourney sooner rather than later may be in that same boat.

dstroud@unews.com