Tell me about the dark days

[RoyalShock]

I thought it was generally known that it was Eddie Sutton who turned us in for the Evans recruitment?

[Rosewood]

Talking trash with SIU fans on the Prodigy college basketball bulletin board.

Prodigy was AOL's Grandfather.

I remember reading a few basketball threads on the WSU BBS. I'm young(ish) but as a youngin I was dialing into BBSes when I should have been sleeping.

[wufan]

This will wake @WuDrWu: up…

I was a wee lad and fancied myself a power forward. The opponent put up a mid-range shot and John Smith went up above the rim with an opponent holding onto one arm. He grabbed the ball one-handed and curled it into his armpit and cleared the lane with a pivot and high elbow. That one play taught me what it meant to rebound. Of course, Smith went on to do terrible things and be a horrible human being, but as a pre-pubescent fan, unaware of life off the court, that was the coolest thing I'd seen.

As has been mentioned, our star player, Jamie Arnold, who lead the league in rebounding and could step out and hit a three walked off the court mid-game and ate a hotdog in the student section.

Before all that was Nickerson transferring and Cooper breaking his leg.

We always had a couple of very talented players, but they mostly transferred, got hurt, or got arrested. The bench was not deep and the coaches couldn't run an offense. We were AWFUL! And I still loved cheering em on!

[jpshocker]

I remember traveling to Tulsa for a game with my dad one year and we pissed away close to a twenty point lead in what seemed like the last 5 minutes of the game to go home with a loss. To me this represented everything I remembered about Shocker basketball once Fogler left. Fogler's teams were very fun to watch but the dark days to come we're overwhelmingly scarring. The period of Cohen, Thompson and Smithson were just really bad. This is also why people get so freaked out about losing good coaches like Marshall because we've experienced the lowest of the lows. It also feeds the inferiority complex. The program is financially in a much different place now but we just don't ever want to return to that awful time. When I was in junior high/high school I used to catch crap from all of my friends for continuing to go to games when they always lost. Ironically, as a kid anyways, peeing in the trough was kind of a highlight. It was far more exciting than most of the games. But understand this, I wouldn't have traded any of that if that's what it ultimately took to get to this point and see this success. It is truly beyond anything I ever thought possible. It certainly makes success that much sweeter!

[ABC]

Re Gaylon Nickerson - I was sitting next a gentlemen who got excited after he made a great play and exclaimed, "Way to go Nicker"! It was funny and awkward and the gentlemen said he didn't think he would say that again.

[rjl]

Road victories were rare. I can't think of a more stark contrast between that era and this one.

The old roundhouse had bench seating up in the higher levels. They rented chairbacks for a few bucks when you walked in. Attendance was sparce enough that people could stash the chairback in the rafters over the top row and grab them the next game without anyone noticing.

Thompson was just in over his head. People were excited when Smithson was hired. Really excited. Recruits paid attention. If you are a winner, someone like Smithson is called "confident" and a "tough talker," but if you are a loser, like we were, someone like Smithson is called an "asshole." Mo Evans left. Fans turned against him. I couldn't blame him, really, because the dude had talent but was getting abused by both his coach and the opposing team.

Midnight madness was something that sort of just arrived. No one I knew really had it marked on a calendar. You just went, watched them do some layups, and went home. It was mostly students.

When Turgeon came we got Burns, Howard, and a few others with some hustle. That was what this team needed. A coach who could recruit a little bit, do a little bit of X's and O's, and a team with a lot of heart.

Making NITs was something special. Playing Florida State at the recently renovated Koch Arena was one of the loudest games ever. Now, it would be a major letdown to be playing FSU in the NIT, but at the time, it felt like almost a big a pendulum swing as us playing in the Final Four last year.

[ShockTalk]

I agree with much of your post, but Thompson was coming off a 20 win season at Rice (just their third in school history) when we hired him. On paper, he was great. Of course we all know how it worked out.

Perez was Thompson's recruit, Darin Miller (senior) was the 2nd leading scorer, along with Jamie Arnold had a lot to do with Randy's first year success. He might have even been better had he been able to keep Marvin Hill (leading scorer previous year as a freshman), but the personality difference between Thompson and Smithson was too much for him. It turned out that personality (plus "demons") was too much for a lot of the players.

I don't know who Thompson's other freshman recruits were or would have been, but I still believe he would have done as well or better than Smithson in his first year. That said, Randy was a hire that had to be tried. It had a lot of potential pluses.

[Fuente 858]

quick summary - a series of used car salesman type ADs that couldn't tell a good coach from a hole in the ground, really lousy football coaches that lost so much money they almost pulled the whole department under, and a series of basketball coaches that consistently underrated the quality of player needed to be successful in the Valley. Turgeon also thought this at first but he learned quickly. The other guys never did.

70's Harry Miller - Shoxlax got me to my first WSU game when we were kids. I remember Ray Shirley and Richard Williams? Teams were talented but wild and undisciplined. An ABA feel.
late 70's - mid 80's - Gene Smithson - good times, bad times. Local talent peaked and that helped us. We still let a bunch of quality players go elsewhere without even recruiting them. Gene wasn't much of an X's and O's guy, but neither are half the coaches nowadays. Program got a black mark and then it was hard to recruit. Took on several players of questionable character and talent. That and some other issues spelled the end for Gene.
late 80's - Eddie Fogler - absolutely hated Wichita. He treated the school and the town like a dirty public restroom, just wanted to do his business and get out ASAP. Thought the Valley was lousy and he was God's gift to coaching. Left as soon as he could and completed the screw job with the Cohen deal.
late 80's - early 90's - Mike Cohen - he was to WSU basketball what John Blake was to Oklahoma football. Tried his hardest but it was a disaster from the start.
early to mid 90's - Scott Thompson - we thought we had one here. Nice man but he didn't get the quality of the Valley in his entire tenure. Vastly under-recruited talent, vastly-overrated his own ability to coach up mediocre high school players. I think he was a good bench coach, he just couldn't evaluate and recruit talent. A much better coach than Cohen but ironically had the exact same career winning percentage (.364).
late 90's - Randy Smithson - more than anything I wanted Randy to succeed. Obviously that didn't happen. Not everyone can be a D-1 head coach.

[Flip1381]

An excessive amount of people would show up for our games against Tulsa....and then the arena would be half-empty before halftime because we would be down by 20-30. And you had to pee in a trough.

Peeing in the trough, boy that brings back the childhood memories. And the green floors on the concourse!

[HockeyShock]

I thought it was generally known that it was Eddie Sutton who turned us in for the Evans recruitment?

Really? I didn't know this. What's the story there?

[pogo]

Most of what is remembered is pretty accurate and that that wasn't has been corrected. We really had some bad management of our athletics during the real bleak years. The athletic department was saddled with a huge deficit from football and Sweet Lew at the behest of Warren Armstrong shut down football. Smithson was fired and Fogler was hired which was done to give the program a clean image and looked to be a good hire at the time. The Black uniforms were discarded because that was a reinforcement of our Bad Boy image so we couldn't have any of that. Fogler recruited academic all americans short on athletic talent. The young guys just did not progress and looking at the staff behind Eddie it may not be surprising. Eddie left and not with the same talent level he had inherited. There were some athletes but not enough of them. Gary Hunter came in and was an attorney with a k who diploma in hand. I believe he was here for one year and was probably daunted by the enormous task at hand. Cohen could not find a recruits house here in Wichita and just blew it off and the young man winds up at SwoMo...the mans name Johnney Murdock who torched us every game. Inept at about everything but was passionate about the kids in the program. Next was Scott Thompson and he did have a very successful year at Rice before coming to WSU. The support at WSU from the administration was little and support from boosters had dwindeled to a few strong supporters. Scott Thompson was by all accounts a fine man and should have been a good hire but again not enough horses. I believe it was he that recruited Jason Perez to WSU but played for Randy. Randy was a great player and a great JuCo coach but was not suited to coach D1 ball. He was not a good rep for the U or the basketball team. He was abrasive to many of the players and his top asst was even more so from what I have been led to believe. One time during one of the coaches shows he made a comment something to the effect "he jumps pretty good for a white guy". Really? On the radio? The Maurice Evans debacle kind of showed how the program was being run along with some other kids with some character issues. The U approached Koch during RS first couple of years where the W's increased and asked about helping with the renovation and I believe was told to wait a couple more years and see how things were going. MT was hired and he was a fresh face for the program and was a good representative. The program started to come around and the renovation of the old Levitt arena into the CKA began and Preferred Health and others helped with all of the phases of construction. My version of what happened and its up for correction as well. I remember the horrible lines and odor of the basement urinal and I remember the smoking that went on in the concourse area and would then filter into the arena leave a pall during the 2nd half. During the Gene Smthson regime it seemed like the women that went to the game were there to be seen and they dressed accordingly. Not in the black and yellow but they dressed like they were set to go out afterwards and party. Of course that may be what was going on but I don't know. The games during the dark times were hard to watch but there were still a core of fans that went to every game and there was another group that would show up for games that had a name brand opponent. The core group was there to support the U and the student athletes no matter how bad the game was. We were a horrible road team for all of those years and even into the first couple of years with MT and then again under GM. You can see what we have now but even with success it was tough to get the students to finally get involved and the band has been outstanding as of late. Enjoy what we have now and when some people complain about some of those old farts not being engaged remember that they were probably engaged during the worst of times.

[Dan]

I was a student in the "dark days" from Fogler's last year and into Thompson's regime. None of these guys could recruit a full team. They all had a few shining stars but we were only about 2-3 men deep (kinda like some of the current Valley bretheren). Suprised nobody mentioned Steve Eck. During this same time that Randy was dominating at Butler, Steve Eck was cranking out state titles and D1 players at South High. There was a faction calling for him to be considered head coach - anything to get more local talent on the team, and Wichita was full of it at the time. What a disaster that could've been. The hiring of Turgeon, coupled with the renovations are what this program sorely needed. All this was done by Jim Schaus, which was another key component of getting the cart back on track.

[rrshock]

Peeing in the trough, boy that brings back the childhood memories. And the green floors on the concourse!

That green floor was a running track, believe it or not.

The 90's also caused us to lose the games being shown on a local network affiliate. Now we have KN22.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Peeing in a trough! What a strange experience that was for a 10 year old.

The restrooms were just as bad as anyone could imagine.

I could muster through a pee, but I always worried that if a #2 was necessary, I would have to leave the arena.

Speaking of facilities, the concourse was about 5' wide. During half-times, it was almost too crowded to walk.

Boo Kraft - Of Johnny Mack bridge fame
John Smith - Of Johnny Mack bridge fame
Rick Conn - If I had to choose one player to epitomize the 90s
Paul Wight / The Big Show
Carter Arnett - He airballed his first two free throw attempts
James Bunch
Chris Grill - He should have been a prize fighter
Craig Steven - He should have been a color spots broadcaster - Oh wait! Upon further review.
Reggie Smithson - I think he had inside connections for his scholarship

There were several players from the 90s period that I really enjoyed as follows:

1. Troy Mack - Another favorite
2. Jason Perez - My favorite
3. Mo Evans - A fine player and equally sullen.
4. Jamie Arnold - Yes, I know he had hot dog issues, but I still enjoyed his play most of the time.
5. L.J. Goolsby
6. Larry Callis
7. L.D. Swanson - Another favorite
8. Claudius Johnson

[jdmee]

Ohh Boo Kraft.

I remember sitting in the stands and having some lady, girlfriend i believe, yelling at the top of her lungs "YEA BOO, YEA BOO." I was sitting there laughing thinking of the irony.