HERB SENDEK IS MAKING ME LOOK GOOD. I said, when he was run out of town on
a rail three years ago by the ever-thoughtful Wolfpack Nation, “In four or five years,
Arizona State’s basketball team will be better than NC State’s.” (At the time ASU was
one of the poorer major conference basketball programs in America.)
Well, according to the pollsters, whose job it is to figure these things out, ol’ Herb (who
is actually a young 45) has done it already. In the latest AP poll, Sendek’s Arizona
State University Sun Devils rank 16 and in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll they rank
15. NC State received no votes.
In 2006 when Sendek left NC State for Arizona State he was well known as a coach
who had run an impeccable program, whose players graduated, whose teams had
averaged 21 victories and had posted five consecutive NCAA tournament appearances
in his last five seasons.
So, why did Sendek leave? Because many State fans wanted him gone. Why were
State fans so upset with him? Mainly because he couldn’t beat Mike Krzyzewski or
Roy Williams. Well, guess what? Neither can anyone else. Heck, they can’t even beat
each other. Williams and Krzyzewski are five and five versus each other since Williams
came to UNC. These are two of the top ten coaches in the history of the game, the
whole history of the game — including Naismith.
What did State fans want Sendek to be? Someone other than who he was — most
likely Jim Valvano. In many respects, Herb Sendek was the anti-Valvano — and that’s
not all bad.
We, including me, have many fond memories of Jim Valvano. He was clever, engaging
and one of the best off-the-cuff comedians you would ever want to meet. I felt about
him like one of my fellow UNC grad students, J. Walker Smith, who told me once the
reason he stayed in school at UNC for his master’s and Ph.D. was for Tar Heel
basketball tickets. He said, “Know what I hate most about Valvano? He’s so hard to
hate!”
You had to like the guy — for his post-game press conferences if nothing else.
Valvano also fought a courageous and inspiring battle against cancer — and left pretty
much all of college basketball fighting it with him.
But Valvano could overreach and did. He didn’t run an impeccable program, bringing
in, among others, the likes of Chris Washburn who was an embarrassment to his
university. And his coaching record, while good, wasn’t on par with Williams or
Krzyzewski either.
True, Sendek can come across like a sedated accountant. In fact, if he were any more
boring in his presentation, he would be Dean Smith. Yep, that boring. But, it pays to
pay attention sometimes. Like ol’ Dean, Herb had very interesting and clear insights on
the game of basketball — but no Italian in his manner to spice up the presentation of
them.
Meanwhile, Sendek was one of the smartest guys ever to coach a game involving a
bouncing ball. My evidence? Sendek graduated summa cum laude, with a 3.95 GPA,
from Carnegie-Mellon University.
And Sendek is not just book smart — though he is that. One impartial witness “put it
this way.” Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said of Sendek: “I’ve been in league
meetings with Roy Williams and Mike Krzyzewski, and Herb was the brightest guy in
the room.”
And now he’s lighting up the Arizona desert.
****
Hatchell shoots for 300th loss
CHAPEL HILL — In the wake of the celebrations of her 800th victory as a women’s
basketball coach, Sylvia Hatchell has moved on to a new goal: 300 losses. It may not
be as easy as it sounds.
In the last four-and-one-half seasons, Hatchell’s Lady Tar Heels have gone 130-13.
“The way I figure it, a loss must be ten times as tough to get as a win,” basketball
commentator Caroline Pack notes. If Hatchell’s teams continue winning at the rate they
have over the last several seasons, it will take her nine years to get from 274 to the 300
loss milestone.
What can Hatchell do to speed the time it takes to get to the magic 300? TV analyst
Debra D’Antonello observes that “the last thing that Hatchell tried, which any coach
could tell you would cost you games, which is to stop caring about turnovers, has blown
up in her face.”
Said D’Antonello, “In the last few years Hatchell’s teams have had more turnovers than
Carter has little pills — and they are winning even more.”
The experts speculated on why Hatchell wasn’t setting a more easily attainable goal,
like say 275 or 280 losses. “I don’t know really. It just seems like big round numbers
make better targets,” Pack said.
Gary D. Gaddy has one win and no losses on his coaching resume
A version of this column was published in the Chapel Hill Herald Thursday January 15,
2009.
Copyright 2009 Gary D. Gaddy
garygaddy.com 