WKU Basketball: Rick Stansbury’s Tenure Trending in the Wrong Direction

Despite another year of amazing preseason hype, WKU Basketball finished yet another non-conference season with a disappointing record (7–5 Overall) and will once again have another Conference Tournament or bust season before the calendar turns to January. Last night’s frustrating loss to Belmont was just the latest example of Rick Stansbury’s teams underachieving and looking generally inept in the process. Despite the loss of Charles Bassey, It’s time for Rick Stansbury to look in the mirror and realize that he’s not getting the job done at WKU and if he doesn’t turn things around quickly his tenure as Hilltopper head coach could soon fizzle out into a failure. In this piece, we’ll examine how despite the hype, WKU Basketball continues to be stuck in place under Rick Stansbury.

The 79–62 loss to Belmont was a microcosm of the problems with WKU Basketball under Rick Stansbury. WKU was outcoached, out hustled and outplayed against a very solid but less talented Belmont program. WKU has chased the consistent results that historically inferior programs such as Belmont and Murray State have achieved over the last two decades but has repeatedly come up short as the quest for excellence has ended in underachievement, near misses and roster drama over the past decade. Rick Stansbury returned excitement to the WKU program and he’s had his moments but losses like Saturday’s have him losing the fanbase more with each passing game and will soon turn into the disinterest that his predecessors Ray Harper and Ken McDonald experienced at the end of their failed tenures.

Hype

After Ray Harper’s tenure ended under mysterious circumstances, Todd Stewart brought a lot of buzz by adding the former Mississippi State head coach in Rick Stansbury. Stansbury had a proven record of winning in the SEC and made the NCAA tournament six times while consistently recruiting at a high level at a place that was tough to win. Stansbury spoke a big game at his introductory press conference. He recalled WKU’s proud basketball history and spoke of consistently selling out Diddle Arena. Stansbury won the introductory press conference and despite inheriting a mess from Ray Harper, he backed up that hype with several high profile recruiting wins and overcame a rough debut season to get WKU to the door of returning to basketball glory.

What Stansbury Inherited

There’s no question that Rick Stansbury didn’t walk into a good situation during his first season on the job. By the time he took the WKU job in late March 2016, WKU had just five scholarship players returning and zero guards at his disposal after Frederick Edmond, Chris McNeal and Marlon Hunter were kicked off the team. Stansbury patched up a roster with flawed grad transfers (Junior Lomomba, Pankake Thomas and Que Johnson) and project freshman to finish his debut with a very disappointing record of 15–17 (9–9). Most fans rightfully shrugged off the debut but that decimated roster hamstrung WKU for many years. He did have Justin Johnson at his disposal for year two but he pretty much had to rebuild WKU’s roster on the fly for two straight seasons. Three and a half years later the lack of upperclassmen from his debut season is very apparent in several issues we’ll explore below.

High Peaks/Low Valleys and Little Consistency

Despite that bad debut Rick Stansbury had fans in his corner before he ever coached a game in Diddle Arena. His eye for talent was obvious and he backed up his reputation as an ace recruiter by getting a level of player that WKU hasn’t been able to get since the 1960s. Gaining the commitment of McDonald’s All-American Mitchell Robinson not only reawakened the WKU fanbase but also gained national attention. His first real recruiting class included 4-Star forward Josh Anderson, Mr. Kentucky Basketball Taveion Hollinsworth, Juco All-American Jordan Brangers, and several other talented pieces. Several of those players wouldn’t make it on the court (more below) for the Hilltoppers but Stansbury would continue to bring in high-level recruits including yet another five-star center in Charles Bassey and two more four-star recruits in reclassified Dalano Banton and Jordan Rawls. These recruiting wins regularly built hype around the program despite the results on the court and had WKU fans dreaming of not only returning to their first NCAA tournament since 2013 but advancing when they go there.

Rick Stansbury has backed up that hype by winning games against big-name opponents that WKU had struggled to beat since Darrin Horn was roaming the sideline. Here is a comprehensive of the high-level programs that Stansbury has beaten since arriving in Bowling Green:

• Purdue, SMU, Boston College, USC, Oklahoma State, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Saint Mary’s, Arkansas (x2)

That impressive list of wins showed proof that Stansbury’s goals of competing at a high level were more than attainable. Unfortunately, he more often than not has canceled out those wins with excruciating resume killing losses like these

• Missouri State (x2), Ohio, Indiana State, Troy, FIU, UTSA (in 2018) and others

WKU fans know good basketball, they expect consistency on a night in, night out basis and the reality is that despite the hype there has been little consistency from day one despite repeatedly having consistently talent rosters since year 2.

Roster Drama/Mismanagement

Despite getting high-level players, a constant of WKU Basketball under Stansbury has been roster drama. That started when two of his patchwork signees during 2016 (Marty Leahy & Marko Stajkovski) left mid-season during his debut and continued after the season when he ran off Jabari McGhee, TJ Howard, and Damari Parris to get more talented players. His first full recruiting class included several commits/signees that never made it to campus (Robinson Idehan, Brangers, Chris Duarte) and was punctuated by the whole Mitchell Robinson saga that gave WKU a blackeye before his second season started.

WKU would start that season with just 7 scholarship players as Anderson and high profile Juco transfer Moustapha Diange were stuck in eligibility limbo for the first two months of the season. Overall Stansbury had just 10 of the 13 scholarships used in 2017–18 due to roster mismanagement and risky additions that didn’t pan out. WKU would heroically overcome that roster drama and make a run to the CUSA tournament final coming up just short but the lack of depth and cohesion probably played a factor in some of WKU’s bad losses keeping them from at-large consideration. A memorable NIT run took some of the steam off of coming up short.

The roster drama would continue into last season as Stansbury oversigned players and highly regarded Juco transfer Trevelin Queen was booted off the team before preseason practice started. After the NIT run, program sentiment was at a recent high and discipline issues reared their ugly head. Starting point-guard Lemonte Bearden didn’t keep his grades up and was academically ineligible during the first semester. Josh Anderson, Taveion Hollingsworth and Grad transfer addition Desean Murray would all get suspended for off the court incidents and WKU would suffer some of those inexcusable losses despite having talent and depth. Murray would then leave the program mid-season and WKU’s talented but inexperienced squad would struggle to a disappointing 20–14 finish, missing the NCAA tournament for the sixth season in a row.

Despite the disappointing result, Stansbury returned several core players (Anderson, Hollingsworth, Jared Savage) and got surprising news as Bassey decided to return for his sophomore season. The future solid and WKU was finally set to have a lot of roster continuity for the first time during his tenure. That continuity quickly went out the window as WKU proceeded to lose six players during the offseason to transfer highlighted by Banton & rising sophomore forward Tolu Smith’s unexpected departure. Stansbury filled most of their spots with more talented players including several proven grad transfers but WKU had lost several role players and now had a glaring hole in the low post without Smith forcing Stansbury to bring back Matt Horton who he ran off to Division 2 after four-star center Nick Ongenda didn’t make it to campus (instead heading to Depaul with former assistant Marc Hsu). The lack of depth down low has been exacerbated by Charles Bassey’s season-ending leg injury.

Stansbury also deserves some blame for banking on Lipscomb transfer Kenny Cooper getting a waiver to become immediately eligible despite no guarantee that that would happen (which it didn’t). By running off Banton and hoping that Cooper would be eligible, Stansbury left himself with a Hollingsworth and reclassified freshman Rawls at the point which thus far has failed with predictable results.

There hasn’t been a season without roster drama and eligibility issues, with Stansbury now in the middle of his fourth season, it’s apparent that the lack of continuity and poor roster management continues to cost the program each game.

Dated and Ineffective Offense

Stansbury definitely isn’t know as an in-game coach. He believes more in talent than strategy. His system revolves around shooting a high percentage from inside the arch and drawing fouls to rack up a large margin at the line. That system isn’t very conducive to today’s modern game which stresses strong guard play and more and more positionless basketball with strong shooters. For years there has never been a real flow to the offense as the ball regularly becomes stagnant and they depend on their slashers (Hollingsworth & Anderson) to make plays and pass to their shooters to make jumpers. It works sometimes but regularly results in prolonged scoring droughts especially when the defense isn’t creating turnovers. The offense also plays a role in several unforced turnovers as players try to force things instead of playing within the flow of a system. These problems are definitely exacerbated without Bassey’s production down low but existed last season and have popped up regularly during Stansbury’s tenure.

Questionable Substitution Patterns

On top of a predictable offense, Stansbury continues to have a long leash with several of his veteran players. The two biggest examples of this are his love of Jared Savage and Cam Justice. While both players have great ability, they are each flawed in certain areas and are inconsistent as well. Last season, Stansbury regularly chose to play Savage despite poor shooting performances and this year he’s doing the same with Savage and Justice despite some horrendous shooting and defensive lapses.

This magnifies Stansbury’s preference to play a short bench and probably played a factor in players such as Banton and Smith transferring as well (though I don’t blame Stansbury for not playing Banton as the season wore on last year).

Stansbury has capable backups that have trouble seeing the court. Anderson is WKU’s second-highest rated player in school history and he had trouble getting 25 minutes a game before Bassey’s injury. Against Belmont, Jordan Rawls saw just 23 minutes despite Justice shooting a dismal 4–14. Jeremiah Gambrell has shown flashes of being a capable shooter but he’s topped 5 minutes just three times. Matt Horton is WKU’s only true size left after Bassey and he struggles to get five minutes a game as well. Instead of playing the hot hand, Stansbury regularly puts the team in a bad position by not extending the bench or penalizing poor play. That problem has been apparent during each of the last two seasons and only highlights his in-game management deficiencies.

Declining Defense

One major issue that has arisen this season the decline of the defense. Rick Stansbury had top 100 defenses in 2017–18 (#82 defensive efficiency in KenPom rankings) and 2018–19 (#92) this kept WKU in games when their offense didn’t show up and created fast breaks as well. That has changed this season as the Defense has declined all the to #169 in the KenPom rankings despite returning 4 starters from last season. The problem existed before Bassey got hurt but has gotten worse since his injury as players such as Justice and Carson Williams provide close to nothing on the defensive end. Stansbury gambled by trading defense for offense this season and why the offense has improved (from #162 to #55 in offensive efficiency) it hasn’t proven to be enough as they are prone to the aforementioned offensive droughts get exacerbated by a defense that has trouble making stops consistently.

Poor Development

With the constant roster turnover, WKU needs it’s few long term players to bloom into stars and bench players to find valuable roles. Players such as Taveion Hollingsworth & Josh Anderson should be turning into all-conference level players right now as they have been in college basketball for two and a half years in Stansbury’s system. Instead, they have largely stayed the same player they were when they arrived in Bowling Green. Anderson has improved his shooting but Stansbury hasn’t trusted him enough to let him take the next step resulting in declining numbers. Hollingworth has been giving every opportunity to be the top player (after Bassey) on the team but has struggled with turnovers and three-point shooting the last two seasons and looks visibly frustrated at times. WKU’s development players have repeatedly struggled to crack Stansbury’s short rotation resulting in attrition and lack of development (see Horton, Gambrell, etc)

If WKU is to take the next step they need these players to elevate the game. It’s up to Stansbury to get the most out of his players and develop them as they get older. We saw first hand the past two seasons what veterans did for Old Dominion (Smith and Caver ) and Marshall (Elmore & Burks) when WKU came up short at the hands of each team.

No Leadership

One of the biggest problems with the lack of roster continuity is the lack of leadership that comes with constant churn. WKU hasn’t really had vocal leaders since Justin Johnson, Darius Thompson, and Dwight Coleby in 2017–18. That problem was apparent last season and has carried on into this season. Not everyone can be a vocal leader but WKU needs a few players to step up. Hollingsworth and Anderson, unfortunately, don’t appear to be the vocal leader types. Grad Transfers such as Justice and Williams are also more lead by example types.

When things go wrong and the going gets tough, teams depend on leaders to regroup and make plays. More often then not WKU misses that leadership in close games as it was apparent in close losses to Bowling Green & Wright State. The lack of leadership also has hurt when it comes to putting teams away. WKU repeatedly played closer to the expected margin against inferior opponents and that’s because the leaderless teams struggle to stay focused.

In losses to Belmont and Louisville the lack of leadership became apparent as well as each loss resulted were highlighted by undisciplined play and lack of focus that leadership can sometimes break.

Why the on the court leadership is a massive issue, the lack of continuity in assistant coaching staff has also been a problem. During his first 4 seasons, Stansbury has had three different coaching staffs. That is a killer from a continuity standpoint and probably shows with discipline, preparation and development from game to game and season to season.

Recruiting tapering off

Rick Stansbury’s first two full recruiting classes were both top 20 quality and unrivaled at mid-major level (not counting Gonzaga). Players such as Anderson, Bassey, Banton and Tolu Smith all bought into Stansbury’s vision for the WKU program. As the lack of immediate playing time and the underachievement occurred, WKU’s recruiting has taken a dip. Stansbury hasn’t signed a 4-star senior since 2018. The 2019 class included two unheralded Kentucky players (Jackson Harlon & Isiah Cozart) that are struggling to see the floor. Rick Stansbury did get 4-star point guard Jordan Rawls to reclassify but the program’s lack of winning at a high level is starting to show on the recruiting trail.

WKU was a finalist for several high four-star players and repeatedly lost out to mid-level P7 programs (such as TCU). 3-Star in-state guard Dayvieon McKnight is Stansbury’s only commitment right now despite there being 3 to 4 roster opening expected next season. They haven’t been linked to many high profile recruits since the summer. If Stansbury’s strategy is being more talented than his in-conference brethren than the declining recruiting fortunes should be a huge area of concern for WKU fans moving forward.

Stansbury’s results thus far

Rick Stansbury has completed three and a half seasons in Bowling Green. He now has a roster full of his own players constructed the way he wants. He now past the point where his record matters more than the hype. Here are his per seasons results

2016–17. 15–17 (9–9)- First Round CUSA Tournament Exit. No Postseason

2017–18. 27–11 (14–4)- Conference USA Conference Tournament Runner Up/NIT Final Four

2018–19. 20–14 (11–7)- Conference USA Title Exit. No Postseason

2019–20. 7–5. -?

Though the first season can be written off due to what he inherited, You can safely say that Stansbury has underperformed in 2 of his 3 seasons and now is sitting at a mediocre 7–5 record heading into the new year without his 5-star Center. WKU is now in the middle of a six-year NCAA tournament drought and if Stansbury doesn’t make the tournament before the end of his tenure then he’ll be the only WKU coach to never make the NCAA tournament. Why the highs have been fun (high attendance, Power Conference Wins) the lows have been frustrating. The near-misses, roster mismanagement, in-game coaching and lack of organization have turned off fans who are running out of patience with the folksy leader of the program.

Time to turn it around in weak Conference USA

Why yet another promising season has hit a speed bump due to injuries and underperformance, Rick Stansbury has time to turn it around. While it will once again be Frisco or bust come March, Conference USA is as down as it has been since WKU joined the league and there are no overwhelming favorites as conference play starts. Here are the Conference USA standings after yesterday’s games

As you can see there is a lot of mediocrity throughout the league. Only WKU and Louisiana Tech can claim Power Conference wins. UTEP is talented and there are a few more sleepers throughout the league but formerly powerful rivals ODU, Marshall, UTSA and MTSU are all way down compared to their recent track record.

WKU should be able to favorably match up with any team in the conference despite having a flawed roster down low. It’s up to Rick Stansbury to not only clinch a top 4 seed for the Conference USA tournament in Frisco (securing a bye) but he needs to fix the litany of issues listed above. WKU is more than capable and he can erase all of the criticism above by making a run in March. Should he do that he’ll hit the reset button on all criticism and get WKU back to the level that fans expect.

The loss to Belmont caused a lot of issues to bubble to the surface. Rick Stansbury probably isn’t on the hot seat yet with the administration but fan patience is now completely gone after yesterday’s listless showing and his inability to the program to the next level. Only improvement and an NCAA tournament bid will stop turn the ship back around to where it was after the 2018 NIT Run.