KSU Hires right man
Saturday, April 7, 2007
Welcome to Frank Martinville.
That doesn’t have quite the same ring to it as Huggieville, but to most Kansas State fans, that’s a good thing.
With Kansas State naming Bob Huggins’ top assistant Frank Martin as its new head coach on Friday — less than 24 hours after Huggins bolted the Little Apple for West Virginia — it was a salvaging move to save the Wildcat basketball program from near extinction.
Hiring Martin was the best move Kansas State could have made considering the precarious situation the school was facing.
Without Huggins on the sideline next season to coach Kansas State’s top-ranked recruiting class, and more importantly, without Martin and No. 2 assistant Dalonte Hill on the Kansas State staff, simply put, Kansas State barely would have had a team of NAIA caliber next year, let alone a team that could compete in the Big 12 Conference.
ACL-recoveree Bill Walker and little-big-man David Hoskins would have been all the hope left for Kansas State.
The reason Rivals.com’s top-ranked recruit and McDonald’s All-American All-Star Game MVP Michael Beasley was going to go to Kansas State was because of Martin and Hill — especially Hill. The same with Dominique Sutton out of Durham, N.C., and Jacob Pullen out of Chicago.
Take Martin and Hill out of the equation, and Beasley, Sutton and Pullen all would have gone somewhere else.
Many people are saying hiring Martin was a knee-jerk reaction by Kansas State to keep its precious recruiting class intact.
So what! What was Kansas State supposed to do, hire some no-name coach, lose potentially the best recruiting class in college basketball in 20 years and sink into a level of basketball obscurity unlike any seen before?
Mind you, Kansas State would have had to compete against the likes of Texas A&M and Arkansas for the top coaches available, if any are even left. And as for new recruits, who was Kansas State going to land if Beasley and Co. bolted? Nearly every player worth offering a scholarship to has signed with his school of choice.
Can you blame the Kansas State officials for wanting to keep some sort of stability within the program and not let the last couple of days’ happenings complete destroy the Wildcat basketball program?
Frank Martin might turn out to be a bad coach, but even a bad coach could win with the talent coming in next year. On the flip side, if Frank Martin is a great coach, or even a good coach, imagine the possibilities for Kansas State in the future.
Kansas State made the right move in quickly hiring Martin as Huggins’ replacement.
Who knows, what looks like a rash decision to some might turn out to be just what the program needed to survive.
Just don’t expect any Martinville T-shirts to hit the shelves anytime soon.
outsidethebox (anonymous) says...
Oh. thank god we have a new coach already. Now we can refocus our attention on important things like gays, bad Somali drivers, and the crime the Mexicans bring. That's sarcasm if you didn't know.
April 7, 2007 at 2:45 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
lurker75 (anonymous) says...
LoL. This guy's last head coaching job was many years ago at a high school, and he's been tutored by huggy the past few years on how to run a program. Yeah. GREAT hire. Everyone knows the reason he got the job. Even he does. K-state made too rash of a decision in the height of its huggy hang-over. People were scrambling, and they got caught up in it. You know what they say: "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."
In all honesty, I really hope it works out. I'd sure be nervous if I was a K-state fan though. If this flops, Weiser should get run out of town.
April 8, 2007 at 8:57 a.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )
coachfernandez (anonymous) says...
KSU will look as dumb in a year, two at max when these student-athletes that are taking the KSU administration to school are gone and KSU is left with a coach that cant coach on this level and they have to fire him. This is so funny. What a time to not be a Wildcat. LOL
April 10, 2007 at 3:32 p.m. ( permalink | suggest removal )