SMU gets it all wrong again

NT80 · February 28, 2004

Right-minded SMU gets it all wrong again

11:34 PM CST on Friday, February 27, 2004

UNIVERSITY PARK – Jim Copeland lassoed SMU football and yanked it back to the Hilltop where it belongs. He spearheaded the effort to build the finest little college football corral, Gerald J. Ford Stadium, that you can find. He's gotten donors to double their giving to Mustangs sports. He's helped make SMU athletics a top-10 program among private schools in the country, what with the success of its swimmers and soccer teams and golfers and tennis players.

But the athletic director fell to 0-2 on Friday when it comes to all anyone really pays attention to: football and basketball.

Copeland fired Mike Dement, the man he handpicked to return the men's basketball program to prominence. Just a few years ago, he fired the man he picked to do the same for Ponies football.

Colleges

Pony distress: SMU fires Dement with 3 games left in season

Blackistone: Right-minded SMU gets it all wrong again

It was enough to make one wonder if SMU president Gerald Turner shouldn't have asked Copeland to join Dement.

"I think that's how we are judged," Copeland said of basketball and football coaching hires.

There is good reason, though maybe unfair, why that is so. Those are the so-called revenue-generating sports. ADs better be as good with those as possible, otherwise they wind up doing something else unpleasant, like cutting, say, the men's track program, which Copeland just did last week.

The questions for SMU are: Are they as good at both as can be expected, especially basketball right now? Was Dement's demise Dement's fault, or Copeland's or SMU's in general?

"The first person I always question is myself," Copeland admitted. "I always look back when things haven't worked."

His basketball and football hires certainly haven't worked, unless you hold sacred the ideal of educating and graduating student athletes. Copeland took another stab at football by hiring Phil Bennett to replace Mike Cavan. In Bennett's recently ended second season, his Mustangs went winless.

Copeland will now take another shot at finding a basketball coach who can do what John Shumate, the coach he inherited and fired, did in 1993: win a conference title and a berth to the NCAA Tournament.

Good luck.

It would seem that finding a winning formula for basketball is easier than for football. Just get a handful of solid players and one really good one and wait to see your name pop up on Selection Sunday.

But you've got to be able to get those players first. And with a basketball facility that hasn't been seriously upgraded in a generation, SMU doesn't have much of a chance. It is that simple. Everyone knows it. We've said so before.

SMU doesn't need a new arena, but it is no secret that it is in dire need of a separate practice gym and workout facility for its men's and women's basketball teams. Even Rice figured that out, and the Owls this season find themselves with an outside shot at getting to a postseason tournament, maybe even the big one.

And the best coaches who might have wandering eyes aren't likely to look long at SMU without some assurances that they'll have as much ammunition as their main competitors. One of the reasons TCU was able to lure longtime Roy Williams assistant Neil Dougherty to Fort Worth was it committed to building a practice facility, which is scheduled to open within months. (Talk about the tortoise beating the hare. How far behind have the Horned Frogs left the Ponies?)

Copeland dressed up his situation as best he could after announcing Dement's dismissal. He admitted the school needed to upgrade its basketball infrastructure but had nothing more than a blueprint to do so. No one is out raising the $16 million estimated to turn that blueprint into brick and mortar.

Copeland said he thinks SMU and Dallas are attractive enough to draw a fine new hoops coach. An early rumor was that Eddie Sutton's son Sean expressed interest, which would buttress Copeland's optimism. A couple other phone calls and faxes rolled into Moody Coliseum before Dement was fresh out.

The funny thing is, I think Dement was the right type of hire for SMU then and now. Ultimately, this is better sold as a steppingstone program rather than a destination. Copeland should hire an up-and-coming coach looking to make his name in order to be swept up by a bigger school.

Or he should call a guy like former SMU assistant Jimmy Tubbs, who has strong Dallas and Texas ties, just like Bennett, which he can turn into potential recruiting bonanzas.

In fact, that's the way Dement's departure should have gone. He should've left for a bigger program after having success at SMU, and Tubbs should've ascended the ladder. Then Copeland wouldn't be questioning himself or, worse, being questioned.

GrayEagle · February 28, 2004

Someone's wrong here. Blackistone says that Copeland hired Dement while the Sportsline editor in Harry's post says that he inherited him. Who's right? Wouldn't make a ton of difference, I guess, since even if he didn't hire him he's allowed him to stay for ten years.

Dement is a good recruiter and decent coach but his team just fell apart on him this year. Seems lkie a coach who has only two losing seasons in ten is entitled to a little more time to me.

drex · February 28, 2004

This presents SMU with a perfect opportunity to add to the folly by bringing back Dave Bliss.

untbowler · February 28, 2004

Bliss should be lucky to have his name even brought again. He belongs in prison for the crap he pulled at Baylor. If a school even took one look at Bliss they would be committing Alumni Support suicide.

SMU better start finding something or they will be the laughing stock of CUSA.

NT80 · February 28, 2004

SMU better start finding something or they will be the laughing stock of CUSA.

They already are!

untbowler · February 28, 2004

on the new CUSA boards I have never seen a more conceited group of fans. SMU thinks they are Kings since CUSa in their stupidity brought them in when they should have told them to go find another home to wreck. The there are the Memphis and ECU morons who think they are better than everyone else. Finally the Marshall fans who after getting their asses handed to them last year think they are now to good for the MAC.

But hey we can still laugh at SMU's follies b/c we have been there and done that.