WKU Basketball: Is This the Season Western Finally Makes It?

It’s been 56 years and Western Kentucky still hasn’t found anyone to fill the shoes of EA Diddle. To some, no coach ever will, but to survive through the next decade somebody has to.

Sustained national success is what former president Gary Ransdell and former athletic director Wood Selig dreamed about 18 years ago when they renovated Diddle for $32.5 million ($50 million in today’s dollars) after a 24–7 season ending in an NCAA tournament appearance in 2001.

$32.5 million was an unheard amount at the time for such a small school from a small conference, but it was the leap the administration had been wanting to take: To take the basketball program to National prominence.

After two more years of NCAA tournament appearances coupled with some of the finest basketball facilities in the whole country, it appeared Western was going to be on the map, much in the same way Gonzaga and Wichita St. are doing today…except it didn’t happen.

It didn’t happen because Western has been repeating history since John Oldham retired as head coach in 1971 after a Final Four appearance. The history of Western Kentucky basketball’s (and almost every other school) successes and failures lay solely on the head coach. If you do not believe that is the case, I would like for you to please stare at the two yearlong train wreck that was UK basketball during Billie Gillespie’s tenure.

Gardner-Webb

Wasn’t it Bob Knight who built Indiana basketball? Wasn’t it Dean Smith who built North Carolina? Coach K, Duke? Rupp, UK? I could go on and on. It was EA Diddle who built the Western basketball brand and fan base. Since his retirement, every coach has rode his coattails because no one has ever stayed long enough to put their mark on the program.

E.A Diddle coached for 42 seasons. In the 56 years since Diddle retired, Western has had 12 coaches, none lasting longer than seven seasons. In the last 40 years, Western’s head basketball coach, on average, has lasted four seasons with only Clem Haskins lasting longer than five.

It really makes you wonder: with its facilities, history and fervent, albeit dying, fan base, why hasn’t Western experienced sustained national success? It is simple. It is mainly because since EA Diddle left and took his salty, sweat-soaked red towel with him, Western hasn’t kept a coach around for any discernible length of time. It is also recently because Western has a FBS football program and it's market size and location makes it hard to draw in more fans and money.

Don’t cry Edgar, it’ll get better I promise

There are four major differences between Western and Gonzaga:

1. Rick Stansbury enters his 4th season as WKU’s head coach and Mark Few enters his 21st season as the head man at Gonzaga.
2. Bowling Green’s population is 65k and sandwiched 75 minutes from both Louisville and Nashville. Spokane is 225k and over four hours away from any town the size of Bowling Green…yes, the Northwest really is that sparsely populated. It’s beautiful. You should go visit, seriously.
3. Western must fight for fans and media attention from the likes of UK and UofL. Gonzaga has half the state of Washington and the top-half of Idaho all to itself.

4. Western plays FBS football, Gonzaga does not.

Out of all the mid-majors who have so-called “made it” during the last 20 years. There are three things which unite them all: Long tenured coaches at basketball-only schools with decent market size and conditions. Power 5 conferences are littered with universities from small college towns like Bowling Green (See Auburn & Clemson). But successful mid-majors in basketball, it is different story: Almost all come from places over 200k population.

Don’t think I am right? Name me a mid-major school that supports FBS football where basketball is consistently successful? You can’t. You can’t do it! Those schools only come from three conferences: Conference USA, Sun Belt and the MAC and all three conferences are objectively inferior to basketball only conferences such as the A-10 and Big East. Plus, I’ll take the basketball tradition at the Missouri Valley over CUSA.

Lack of FBS football (and City size) has also allowed schools such as Butler, Creighton, VCU, Davidson, Wichita St, etc, to leapfrog into better conferences, something Western has little chance of doing.

We all know the power of keeping your coach. Just look at what the perennially mediocre Kermit Davis was able to do after his 10th season at MTSU. Below is a list of certain mid-majors who were able to hold onto their coach for an extended period of time, achieved success and lacked FBS football. Feel free to comment at the bottom of the page if you feel like a team was left off the list or if you feel there is a consistently successful mid-major basketball program that supports FBS football. All these schools are also in better market conditions than Bowling Green.

Note: The only exception to this list is Butler (you can throw Xavier and Dayton in too). Their recent success stems from retaining Brad Stevens as long as they did. Butler has had an impossible continued success at hiring new coaches (Xaiver/Dayton too). They have had 8 coaches since 1978 and have not fired 1 of them. In fact, Butler has only fired 1 coach since 1926! Western has fired 4 coaches since 1990!!!!!

I think two really interesting cases which puts the emphasis on the length of coaching tenure and lack of FBS football as staple of mid-major basketball success as Saint Mary’s and Davidson. Keeping both their coaches now for almost two decades has allowed them to achieve sustained national success.

St. Mary’s had no basketball tradition and Davidson, aside from a few years in the sixties under Lefty Driesell, has none either. Both of these coaches, because of the length of time as a coach, have been able to put their mark on the program:

• They are both receiving votes in preseason top 25 polls (see above).
• Saint Mary’s has been to the NCAA tournament or the NIT every year since 2008, receiving numerous at-large bids.
• Davidson has been to the NCAA tournament or the NIT for seven of the past eight seasons receiving an at-large in 2015.
• Davidson’s lack of FBS football has also allowed them to jump into the multi-bid A-10 conference.

Western on the other hand is stuck in conference USA, which is fitting because you have to literally travel the whole length of the USA just to play your away games. Western has been to the NCAA tournament or NIT five times since 2008 and has not received an at-large bid since 1994.

I think a partial reason why Western hasn’t been able to keep their “successful” coaches (Dennis Felton and Darrin Horn) since 2000 was because of a fatal administrative error: the administration believed no one person was bigger than the program, in other terms, Western was the reason for their coaching successes. Recent history suggests that belief may be true, but the careers of Gene Keady and Clem Haskins prove otherwise.

The recent story of head coaches and Western play out like a couple of school kids on a see-saw: Western and its coach are both laughing, kicking themselves-up, sending the other back down, having a great time. That is until Western reaches great heights and the coach jumps off at the bottom leaving Western crying with a bruised ass looking for another coach to get on the see-saw with. Sometimes the new see-saw buddy doesn’t know how a see-saw works (see below).

Darrin Horn and Dennis Felton left, not for greener pastures, but for more money.

In 2009, after one season at South Carolina, Darrin Horn received a raise and a contract extension. The raise made his base salary $1.1 million a year. When he was fired three years later, he received a $2.4 million buyout from the Gamecocks. In June 2007, Darrin Horn’s salary at Western was $150k a year. He would’ve had to coach at Western for 16 years to get what he got paid by SC to NOT freakin’ coach!

If you look at the bigger picture of Western basketball over the past 40 seasons, you see the same story over and over again. Someone has tremendous success (Keady, Willard, Felton), they leave either because Western was unwilling or unable to properly compensate them according to their market value. A new coach is hired and sometimes it’s a win (Haskins, Horn), but most of the time the momentum is lost/eviscerated (Richards, Arnold, Killcullen, McDonald) and the rebuilding process starts again…rinse, wash and repeat.

Where’s a red towel when you need one

The Ken McDonald hiring was such a colossal mistake that after his short stint at Western, McDonald’s reputation was completely ruined. Once thought as an up-and-coming college coaching all-star, McDonald’s reputation was so damaged after Western, he was essentially blackballed from the college game. In 2018, like fat John Goodman from the film, Raising Arizona, he was finally able to escape the muddy depths of the NBA’s D-league, landing at Tulsa.

“Must destroy another program”

Newsflash: Ol’ Kenny is no longer listed as a coach for the Tulsa Hurricanes and this fantastic journalist can’t find information anywhere regarding his whereabouts, but I digress.

You could say Western is the unluckiest mid-major basketball program in the last twenty years. Back in 2002, if you asked someone which mid-major basketball program will become nationally prominent, most insiders would’ve picked Western with its brand new $32.5 million renovation, on-the-cusp of 3 straight NCAA tournament appearances, a preseason Top 20 ranking, and all the history to go along with it. Aside from being unable to keep/hire good coaches and not foreseeing conference realignment quickly enough, what the frick happened?

FBS Football transition concurrent with tremendous campus expansion.

I theorize Western was unable to keep Darrin Horn because of the substantial amount of funds, time and effort earmarked for Western’s transition to FBS football. I postulate Western was/is stuck in inferior basketball conferences because of its transition to FBS football. In the early 2000s, there was much talk about Western moving to the Missouri Valley Conference, which was the best mid-major conference in basketball at the time. The conference became jumping-off points to bigger successes for schools such as Wichita St. and Creighton.

It also didn’t help that Western Kentucky as a University literally doubled its enrolment and campus size from 1995–2010. Anyone who understands business and the dangers of overtrading (over-expanding) knows this can lead to serious cash flow issues. The amount of capital tied up in to those two things, along with tuition rates doubling for students during those 15 years, put Western under extreme pressure not to give too much money to one employee.

So, Mister Negative, how do we become nationally prominent?

1. Keep Rick Stansbury at all costs

• Stansbury is pushing 60. He doesn’t need to go to some shithole Power 5 school to finish out his working life. He’s already spent 20 years in Starkville, MS. 20 years in Starkville is like 30 years to you and me.
• Rick should retire at Western and have a statue of himself next to Diddle sipping from a Dasani water bottle.
• Multiple shots of his wife cheering should be featured during every televised game.

Rick really is one hell of a recruiter…A 5-star on all the lists

2. Make do with FBS football

• I am not a hater of FBS football. I just look at facts. Most, if not all, consistently successful mid-major basketball programs do not support FBS football. I personally believe this was the reasoning behind UAB temporarily dismantling its football program.
• Football has been very successful with its transition to FBS, but is experiencing the same problems with coaching hires as with basketball. I think if Stewart hadn’t botched the last two years with the “He Who Must Not Be Named” hire, there could be a real possibility of moving to the AAC. It’s a long road. but Western can do it by holding on to both their current coaches.

3. Keep the fans in the seats and the players out of jail

• My next article will be about the immaturity of last year’s team versus the supposedly more mature Hilltoppers we will see on the floor this year…only time will tell.
• As for the fans. I have no gripe with the fans. It is not their fault that the eight o’clock games “are just too late” for some of them. Yes, Western fans are old as dirt and are dying off by the dozens between home games. It is not their fault, though it is becoming more and more of a problem as the plots at Fairview Cemetery become harder to find.
• No, the problem lies with the young generation raised on ESPN and around the clock UK and UofL coverage and National Championships (at least the ones not taken away).
• It needs to be cool again to cheer for Western. There shouldn’t be a conflict of interest when Western plays UofL this Thanksgiving. A culture of fandom curated and this takes time. New fans will grow, but it takes a few years of sustained success to make it happen. Look at what one NIT did to last year’s season tickets.

There were no Gonzaga fans 20 years ago. 15 years ago, Wichita St was dead and right now, it is possible, so is Ken MacDonald. Please Ken, if you are reading, I am sure there are people out there who care for and love you…just probably not anyone within a 99-mile radius of Bowling Green. If anyone knows where he is currently let me know in the comments.

The 2019–20 season could be the next step towards Western Kentucky joining those elevated mid-major programs above. It starts with returning to the NCAA tournament this year and keeping Rick Stansbury past the five-year ceiling of the last 40 years.