South Florida (8-6) at Wichita State (10-4) Game Discussion: Jan 06 (Mon)

[SubGod22]

What about the South Florida game for Christ's sake?

Is that really any better to talk about?

[rjl]

The amount of mental gymnastics people will do to tell themselves "it's okay!" that Marshall was weak, couldn't control himself, and hit players, verbally abused players, and said some pretty f*cking weird sh*t to players, is pretty wild. Throw in the assistant coaches and other random students, too.

Some how, some way, almost every other successful NCAA basketball program has managed to have coaches not do those things. In fact, the incidences where other coaches couldn't control themselves made news, too, and those coaches were also shown the door.

But not poor 'ol Marshall, right? For a lot of you, it's par for the course for WSU to be successful. It's those players' fault for having the gall to say something about it, doggonit!

If you are looking for places to point your fingers to blame the current state of the program, Marshall's inability to control himself certainly deserves at least one of your ten fingers.

[ShockTalk]

The amount of mental gymnastics people will do to tell themselves "it's okay!" that Marshall was weak, couldn't control himself, and hit players, verbally abused players, and said some pretty f*cking weird sh*t to players, is pretty wild. Throw in the assistant coaches and other random students, too.

Some how, some way, almost every other successful NCAA basketball program has managed to have coaches not do those things. In fact, the incidences where other coaches couldn't control themselves made news, too, and those coaches were also shown the door.

But not poor 'ol Marshall, right? For a lot of you, it's par for the course for WSU to be successful. It's those players' fault for having the gall to say something about it, doggonit!

If you are looking for places to point your fingers to blame the current state of the program, Marshall's inability to control himself certainly deserves at least one of your ten fingers.

I was not addressing any of the "other" situations. I am not absolving Marshall of any of his questionable (at best) actions. I am not absolving Morris of any of his questionable (at best) actions.

[Dan]

Things were known and covered up by the AD for years. Marshall ran the athletic dept because of what he was doing in basketball and the money and notariety that came with it. Not to mention he had a really weak AD that got his coffee in the mornings. It's easy to say how great things were in hindsight but they weren't great in a lot of ways and things could have been handled differently and maybe he would still be the coach here. Also, we don't know how 3G would be doing in the unlimited transfer and NIL environment. He had plenty of transfer problems during his time so I imagine it would be even worse now.

[SubGod22]

Things were known and covered up by the AD for years. Marshall ran the athletic dept because of what he was doing in basketball and the money and notariety that came with it. Not to mention he had a really weak AD that got his coffee in the mornings. It's easy to say how great things were in hindsight but they weren't great in a lot of ways and things could have been handled differently and maybe he would still be the coach here. Also, we don't know how 3G would be doing in the unlimited transfer and NIL environment. He had plenty of transfer problems during his time so I imagine it would be even worse now.

Our NIL situation would be a hell of a lot better which would help.

[Kung Wu]

Some how, some way, almost every other successful NCAA basketball program has managed to have coaches not do those things. In fact, the incidences where other coaches couldn't control themselves made news, too, and those coaches were also shown the door.

You'd be surprised.

[Topshock]

This has all been hashed over before, so I'll try to keep it simple (if I have something wrong, please feel free to correct).

Basically, Shaq was lazy. While Shaq's mother was living, she told and in trusted GM to push him to get the best out of him, not only as a basketball player, but as a young man and student. Shaq left at least once to go back home, and his mother told him to get back up there.

After Shaq's mother passed away, he was later getting back than he was supposed to be for practice. During the scrimmage, Shaq, from behind, lowered the boom by sending a fellow teammate hard to the floor. Coach came unglued. On his own, Shaq was leaving the floor to go to the locker room as Marshall followed trying to get him to stop and as they went into the tunnel GM gave him a rap on the back of the head to get his attention (so GM said). To my knowledge, no player actually saw it and only knew what Shaq told them.

Personal Opinion: It seemed that Shaq embellished what may have happened to certain players on the team.

Side note: A year or two after that, in an interview with a reporter before a post season game in a day or two, Shaq was asked about his relationship with Marshall. Can't quote it, but it was basically "He was OK with Coach, and he hoped Coach was OK with him".

That was until a few years later and a different picture was presented by the "out of basketball" Shaq at home during another interview.

Anyone can feel free to correct.

I agree with your opinion asiseeit .

Please lets not get into this again. By the same token, the last word needs to be accurate GM told Shaq to leave the practice and many people witnessed what happened in the tunnel. I know these things and I would stake my life and everyone I love on the accuracy of this.

[Kel Varnsen]

Without trying to sound like David Lukner from Seinfeld (played by Cary Elwes), here we go...

Do we have any "proof" Marshall hit Shaq? No, but we do have Ron Baker on the record as saying that Shaq told the team right after it allegedly happened.

Do we have any proof that Shaq tried to injure a teammate? Absolutely not.

Do we have accounts that Marshall took things too far in other instances? Absolutely. The Lindsted choking incident is probably the most egregious.

Should his antics have been nipped in the bud long before everything blew up? Absolutely. Weak leadership, along with Marshall himself, allowed this to fester.

Was Marshall's presence in the lives of these young men (many of whom needed discipline and fire instilled in them in order to reach their potential and accomplish things they never new possible) a net positive? Absolutely. If you want to tell me that players like Ramon Clemente, JT Durley, David Kyles, Gabe Blair, Garrett Stutz, Shaq Morris, or Darral Willis would have gotten as much out of their careers as they did because they played for a "nice" coach, you can forget about it.

The Last Dance probably could have found even more storylines if it wasn't being bankrolled by Michael Jordan himself, but I've found quotes from some of his Bulls teammates particularly instructive in this.

BJ Armstrong:

Was he a nice guy? He couldn’t have been nice. With that kind of mentality he had, you can’t be a nice guy. He would be difficult to be around if you didn’t truly love the game of basketball. He is difficult.

Jud Buechler:

People were afraid of him. I mean, we were his teammates and we were afraid of him. It’s just fear. The fear factor of MJ was so, so thick.

Will Perdue:

Let’s not get it wrong. He was an a**hole, he was a jerk, he crossed the line numerous times. But as time goes on and you think back about what he was actually trying to accomplish, you’re like, ‘Yeah, he was a hell of a teammate.’

I'll include a quote from Jordan himself:

So I pulled people along when they didn’t want to be pulled. I challenged people when they didn’t want to be challenged, and I earned that right because my teammates who came after me didn’t endure all the things that I endured. Once you joined the team, you lived at a certain standard that I played the game, and I wasn’t gonna take anything less. Now if that meant I had to go in there and get in your ass a little bit, then I did that. You ask all my teammates, ‘The one thing about Michael Jordan was he never asked me to do something that he didn’t f**king do.’ When people see this, they’re gonna say, ‘Well, he wasn’t really a nice guy, he may have been a tyrant.’ Well, that’s you. Because you never won anything. I wanted to win, but I wanted them to win and be a part of that as well. Look, I don’t have to do this. I’m only doing it because it is who I am. That’s how I played the game. That was my mentality. If you don’t wanna play that way, don’t play that way.

Sometimes, people need a Colonel Jessep and not a Daniel Kaffee.

[Singeril]

The university owns much of the blame as to how this was badly handled in the first place. A three month suspension with required anger management...that would have gone a long way to calm the herd and protect the future of the program. Alas....

[Woodrow]

Without trying to sound like David Lukner from Seinfeld (played by Cary Elwes), here we go...

Do we have any "proof" Marshall hit Shaq? No, but we do have Ron Baker on the record as saying that Shaq told the team right after it allegedly happened.

Do we have any proof that Shaq tried to injure a teammate? Absolutely not.

Do we have accounts that Marshall took things too far in other instances? Absolutely. The Lindsted choking incident is probably the most egregious.

Should his antics have been nipped in the bud long before everything blew up? Absolutely. Weak leadership, along with Marshall himself, allowed this to fester.

Was Marshall's presence in the lives of these young men (many of whom needed discipline and fire instilled in them in order to reach their potential and accomplish things they never new possible) a net positive? Absolutely. If you want to tell me that players like Ramon Clemente, JT Durley, David Kyles, Gabe Blair, Garrett Stutz, Shaq Morris, or Darral Willis would have gotten as much out of their careers as they did because they played for a "nice" coach, you can forget about it.

The Last Dance probably could have found even more storylines if it wasn't being bankrolled by Michael Jordan himself, but I've found quotes from some of his Bulls teammates particularly instructive in this.

BJ Armstrong:



Jud Buechler:



Will Perdue:



I'll include a quote from Jordan himself:



Sometimes, people need a Colonel Jessep and not a Daniel Kaffee.

I know for a fact that Lindsted was not choked. He said if they would have asked him he would have told them Marshall never choked him. They never asked.

[ShoxFan7]

I loved GM. Got to meet him a few times and he always super gracious and extremely intense. I’m no insider but I heard rumblings about his behavior and overall attitude towards everyone on campus except Bardo (RIP) before the JG article.
I believe had we had an actually leader, Bardo, at that time an about face action plan would have occurred and GM would have stayed. That wasn’t case…
Once they were at an impasse and a divorce was imminent, what make my blood boil more than anything was the complete lack of leveraging everything GM had built to get a real HC replacement. We seriously could have had our pick of nearly any non blue blood coach and instead Boatwrong torpedoed program at the absolute worst time in college athletics history.

[asiseeit]

Nice guys finish last. Not always but much of the time. From what I think I know I have not heard enough to completely destroy a program. Give me the MJ's, Ty Cobbs and Pete Roses of the world on my team. Soft coach is probably going to have a soft team. I again relate to military basic training. It was as tough and demeaning in order to produce good and tough fighters. IMHO GM didn't even come close to a line for serious punishment.

[Husker4Shockers]

16-6, 15-13, 17-15. So no. But still not great

Better than this!

[Kung Wu]

I know for a fact that Lindsted was not choked. He said if they would have asked him he would have told them Marshall never choked him. They never asked.

Heck a little choking in basketball's not that unusual ...

[C0|dB|00ded]

Our NIL situation would be a hell of a lot better which would help.

I'm pretty proud of our "NIL situation". There's enough money in this town to pay the whores their ransom, but most are abstaining based on principle. I'm thankful for those people.

Like I said before, if one Fatcat wants to piss away a boatload of money on an incohesive bunch of brats, so be it. I'll enjoy watching the chaos. I'd also enjoy shutting down D1 sports for a period of time while making the biggest national stink possible. The latter would be far more enjoyable, and honorable IMO.