I need some help here, so feel free.

We fire our Coach in March. We have 3 inelg players right now headingto fall, with a new coach.

The program is a mess right now and we have major APR issues.

My main question is:

Has anyone heard of the academic people at KSU loosing their jobs? I mean who provides our athletes, all of them not just basketball, with support? I know that we have building here on campus I hear the players talking about going. But if we are having this much trouble, what do these people really do?

Why were their jobs safe?

I looked on the ksu athletics web site.

It lists Steve Benton as Asst AD for Student-Athlete Academic Success. I would assume he is in charge then. Looks like he reports to a Dean over Academics, Dr. Robert Mattox.

Steve has a lot of people listed below him, but it just says their titles. I know it was easy to pin this mess on Ingle, espically following the last couple of years.

But what exactley does this Steve Benton and staff provide?

Please weigh in.

I think this is a big piece of the puzzle. This was blamed on Ingle, and while the coaching staff deserves some responsibility, they don't hire coaches because they aced calculus. A school hires a coach because he can knows the game of basketball and can win. Our academic support staff either needs to be better funded, or have new people take the mantle. It wasn't fair to Ingle, and it won't be fair to Preston if we don't have our basketball players advancing towards their degrees.

Really. There isn't anyone else on this board who has an opinion on the very serious topic?

This is affecting our basketball team.

Buhler?

Buhler?

Buhler?

Do I not count .owls? :)

There is an expression: "You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make him drink." I don't pretend to know what Benton and his staff do on a daily basis, but when you have other athletic teams with kids graduating and, some, graduating with honors it would be short sighted to blame them for the academic problems the men's hoops team has suffered.

As for blaming Ingle, he is the coach that recruited the players. He and his staff were responsible for knowing where those players stand academically at any given time. They don't have to teach the players Calculus, but they do have to know if a player is struggling and it is most definitely part of a coaches job description. The issue was that Ingle and his staff recruited players, took away their scholarships, and then recruited new players. You cannot turn over your roster like he did year in and year out and not think there wouldn't be any sort of punishment. That was just one of the foolish things they did.

Everyone knew this was coming. Combine that with an underperforming team and abysmal attendance and you have to fix the problem. Let's hope Preston and his staff can rebuild quick and get this program back on track.

If I were any of the players, I'd stick it out and pay my dues for my mistakes. Join the team in January for the stretch run and show some character and responsibility, be a man, and put the program ahead of any selfish attitudes. We had a few teams like that once, it would be nice to see again.

I agree that the players affected should definitely stick it out and rejoin the team in January...they don't have much of an option otherwise to be honest. And I don't disagree with the idea that you could see Ingle's leash getting shorter....but I do disagree with where most of the blame should go. That academic support staff is there to be the academic coaches for our athletes. It is their job to get them to drink the water....not point them to the water fountain and leave it up to the kid whether he drinks it or not.

The players that transferred have nothing to do with people being academically ineligible, you are getting into APR problems and that most certainly effects our APR. But with regards to why we have had 5 people academically ineligible over the past 2 seasons, I think that while the blame is mutually shared, that most of that falls on our academic support staff.

I was simply pointing out that the APR problems were in addition to the academic problems and not the cause of academic problems.

I think you are putting the cart before the horse, so to speak. There is nothing that any academic staff can do if the player is not willing to make the effort. Additionally, we need to look at the larger picture. If the other athletic teams aren't having the same problems with eligible players to the same degree, then the problem lies within the men's program. This falls at the feet of the former coach and his staff, they are the one's responsible for their players. They are the one's that have to make the "horses drink the water" as you mention.

At the end of the day, the right move was made. Whether you like Ingle as a person or not, has no relevance on the results of his running the program.

I definitely agree with some of your points, and I think we can both agree without a shadow of a doubt that we desire as Owls fans to have all of our sports teams compete on the court and in the classroom. The evidence is clear that the Men's basketball program did not do that for the past few years, and that is the reason that Ingle was fired.

My hope is that Kennesaw realizes that all of the problems that were faced by the program were not merely Ingle's faults. This way they can set up the next coach (Preston) for more success. Basically I don't want to be in this situation as a fan again in 5 years. Preston can certainly affect that, but so can our academic support staff.

Welcome to the boards Hooterdome...

First, thank you for the welcoming. I do appreciate it and appreciate the civility of a good debate.

Second, I think we agree on more than "some things," but based on some of your previous posts, I think you are willing to shade your eyes on who is to blame based on your personal feelings for Ingle. I'm not saying he is a bad person, but if you're going to accept credit for winning a national championship, you have to accept full responsibility for being less than successful on and off the court as a whole.

To run his style of offense, you have to minimize your turnovers and shoot extremely well. They did not. To run his style of defense, you have to rebound well and defend above average, they did not. He had 7 losing seasons as head coach, APR problems based on choices he made, and academic problems under his watch.

Do you know why the previous coaches were let go? Off the court problems.

At the end of the day, we're all on the same page = a program we can be proud of. Let's hope those days aren't far off.

The coaches before were let go because they were awful in every sense of the word. Ingle brought respectability, a National Championship, and a platform to promote our school to Division 1. I realize why he was let go, but he was the greatest men's basketball coach that Kennesaw has ever known, and it isn't even close. Off the court issues didn't get Ingle fired, lets be honest. If he had won 25 games each of the past 2 years or if he had won the ASun tournament a few times, he would still be coaching in Kennesaw. He was fired because he didn't win, and the academic problems, while not helping, were used by Whitlock to feign a moral high ground.

(05-24-2011 07:14 PM)Hooterdome Wrote:  First, thank you for the welcoming. I do appreciate it and appreciate the civility of a good debate.

Second, I think we agree on more than "some things," but based on some of your previous posts, I think you are willing to shade your eyes on who is to blame based on your personal feelings for Ingle. I'm not saying he is a bad person, but if you're going to accept credit for winning a national championship, you have to accept full responsibility for being less than successful on and off the court as a whole.

To run his style of offense, you have to minimize your turnovers and shoot extremely well. They did not. To run his style of defense, you have to rebound well and defend above average, they did not. He had 7 losing seasons as head coach, APR problems based on choices he made, and academic problems under his watch.

Do you know why the previous coaches were let go? Off the court problems.

At the end of the day, we're all on the same page = a program we can be proud of. Let's hope those days aren't far off.

Agree with KB on this. Ingle wins games & he is still here. This is very simple and not complex as you are making it.

He didn't do what KSU asked of its head coach. Didn't win enough. Had off court issues. Took a lot of chances in recruiting that didn't pay off. Ticked people off on campus. I do agree with Hooter on that. He lost complete control of his program. Ingle was just a lame duck when Waples retired.

A change was needed. But they needed to show the man more respect than they did.

That still does not give the academic people at KSU a free pass. Benton and his staff at any other place would of been gone too. Rightfully so. They should be held equally responsible for these kids not getting it done too. They need to be on the hook for this too. They are paid to help athletes with school. Much as coaches are paid to win games.

Ingle didn't win. He was fired.
Players aren't getting it done in classroom. Benton should be fired.

Comes with territority.

I am sure that our new AD will address this with -- oh wait UConn has APR troubles too. Great!

As far as his offense and defense goes. Not sure, but I do think the man has won a lot of games. Can't take that away from him. Things I think just got away from him at this level. Some people are just good D2 coaches. Ingle is one of those people.

http://ksuowls.com/news/2011/5/24/GEN_0524112658.aspx

I believe this shows how the AD feels about the situation.

If some programs had a perfect score, and all of the other programs were above the average, why should the academic staff be punished. Coaches are responsible for their players actions on and off the court. I believe that Ingle was a great coach and I respect him a lot but it was time for a change. I do agree that if Ingle won 20 games last season he would still be coaching, look at John Calhoun. I've had class with many athletes and basketball players were the ones who were always cutting class, except those not on scholarship. Going for the most athletic or best players can turn around and burn you in the long run sometimes.

I've followed KSU for the past four to five years and have attended all of the basketball games that I could, including trips to Belmont this year and Mercer last year. The man knows how to coach, and although this year many will say that the offense was "street ball" is naive. You have to play to your strengths. Ingle's offense is useless without a quick wing which was lost with Kurtis Woods.

I do think that Ingle deserved more respect then what was given during his dismissal, but I don't believe that Ingle would have stepped down willingly. KSU basketball was his life, and he built it from the ground up. Hopefully Preston will live up to his hype and get the basketball program back on track.

Great first post Kelti, and welcome to the boards. I am glad to see in that article that they have added a staff person to help with Men's basketball. Plain in simple, men's basketball and football are different animals when it comes to academics. In order to be competitive you are facing tough choices between talent and academic security. In order to get a kid with above our level talent, there is often some risk involved, and that risk usually involves academics.

The loss of Kurtis and essentially Heramb made it difficult on Ingle. He relies on defense to spur his offense, and we simply didn't have the wing personnel to guard like Ingle wanted to guard. But back to the academics....it isn't hard to find golfers that meet the APR, it is difficult to find men's basketball players. It is a combed over sport recruiting wise, so it is rare that you find a player that is a diamond in the rough athletically and academically.

"The coaches before were let go because they were awful in every sense of the word." ---- what are you using for a reference? The truth is that there were off the court problems that caused their demise.

His offense was anything but "streetball." It was a plodding, easily predictable group of set plays. In order to win with that type of offense, you must shoot extremely well and cut way down on turnovers. His teams were historically poor shooting and turned the ball over way too much.

"it isn't hard to find golfers that meet the APR, it is difficult to find men's basketball players." That is simply not true. There are plenty of other programs, in the ASun and nationally, that did not have the problems that our basketball team had.

In closing, I read the article. Losing 2 scholarships, reducing practice time and reducing contact time made it necessary for them to hire someone on the academic staff who is allowed to have contact with these players. You can't defend this kind of performance or blame it on an academic staff that had 15 out of the 16 programs under their watch being successful. That's like calling Chipper Jones a terrible hitter because he only went 2 for 4 with a couple of dingers.....

I didn't call the academic staff terrible, just said that they share the blame. It was a joint failure. As far as the coaches previous to Ingle, lets take a look:

Phil Zenoni:
NAIA: 7-21 (6-12)
NAIA: 14-16 (9-9)
NAIA: 14-15 (8-10)
NAIA: 14-15 (8-10)
NAIA: 15-13 (9-7)
NAIA: -11 (12-6)
NAIA: 20-10 (11-7)
NAIA: 19-12 (13-3)
NAIA: 20-9
DII: 8-19 (5-13)
DII: 12-15 (8-10)

Greg Yarlett
DII: 20-7 (12-6)
DII: 19-10 (10-6)
DII: 10-17 (4-12)
DII: 14-11 (7-9)

Tony Ingle:
DII: 11-15 (6-10)
DII: 20-10 (13-6)
DII: 25-10 (14-5)
DII: 35-4 (16-0) National Champs
DII: 24-6 (13-3)
DI: 12-17 (10-10)
DI: 13-18 (9-9)
DI: 10-20 (7-9)
DI: 7-22 (3-17)
DI: 13-20 (7-13)
DI: 8-23 (6-14)

When you compile those stats there are two things that are very clear.

1. None of the coaches we have had were fired when they were on the upswing of their winning percentage. I am not claiming that Zenoni and Yarlett didn't have off the court problems (they had huge problems...ethical/moral problems, not simply kids not going to class), but if they would have won 30 games their last years they would have gotten another shot. Ingle had academic problems here the past 2 years...however, if he had won 28 games last year instead of winning a combined 28 games in the past 3 years, then he would still be our coach. Lets be realistic. The academic issue is a scapegoat. It is a real problem, but it is not the reason that Ingle was fired. He was fired because he stopped producing wins.

2. Ingle is the greatest basketball we have had at Kennesaw up to this point. Plain and simple. Just because we only have 25 years of coaching history doesn't negate Ingle's place. He took a mediocre/troubled DII program, and won a national championship. Along the way we moved up Divisions, and to my surprise Ingle was not as succesful as I thought he would be. He took some academic chances to try and get some better talent, and they didn't pan out. I think they didn't pan out for a combination of reasons, one of those being that they were poorly supported by the academic support staff. You seem to want to dismiss any blame on the academic support, and in my opinion that isn't accurate.

Basketball players and football players require more academic help than any other sport. That is reality, and that academic support structure better get ready for it with big time football coming our way. If they are sticking their head in the sand and thinking this was merely an 'Ingle' problem, they are setting themselves and our teams up for failure.

Hooter you are right on a couple of points.

However to say that the coaching staff was awful, shows flat ignorance on your part. I am not suggesting Tony Ingle needs to said in the same sentence with Coack K, like your guy KB is. But I will say without him, we would not be a Div I school in a league, with the resourses we do have. He did do a great deal for the university.

It was time for him to go though.

The funny thing is a former player told me they hired someone three years ago to work with men's basketball. Guess the guy has a football background, played or coached or something. This player said the guy they hired was really good at first and things were turning around. Guess the grades were decent last year? But as time wore on, this guy started to work less and less for the guys.

He said that the problem is this Benton guy. Said all the athletes think he's a goon or something. Guess he knows nothing about athletics and tries to come off like he knows what the kids are going thru. This player also said he thought they hired another guy this winter who did work with Ingle and staff and that all the current players hate him. He threw a bunch of them under the bus to the new AD in a meeting a few weeks ago.

This is just a circus.

Want to fix the problem? Cut out the cancers. Yes, their are more than one.

Dixon-Gone
Green-Gone
Marine-Gone
Cummings-Gone
Robinson-Gone

Give Preston a complete fresh start, take your lumps, your post season ban and let him build. If not, this APR thing will continue to grow and the will be prolonging this programs growth. Then in 3 years, Preston is gone and here we go again!

We get rid of 5 players and the APR issue will loom even larger. Preston needs to work with these guys, coach them up, and help them mature. Disagree wholeheartedly that we need to start from scratch. The cupboard is far from empty for Preston, even with the new APR restrictions.

Also, Ingle is no coach K, but he was a good coach for us, and represented us well. I don't like him being scapegoated.

(05-25-2011 04:48 PM)KennesawBasketball Wrote:  We get rid of 5 players and the APR issue will loom even larger. Preston needs to work with these guys, coach them up, and help them mature. Disagree wholeheartedly that we need to start from scratch. The cupboard is far from empty for Preston, even with the new APR restrictions.

Also, Ingle is no coach K, but he was a good coach for us, and represented us well. I don't like him being scapegoated.

Ingle is a good coach. I agree. But you make it sound like he built Rome. He had a good 5 year run in D2.

We dont get rid of these players and it gets larger amd pro longs our demise. Now all of a sudden we have 2 years of post season ban. How we gonna recruit against that?

Wont happen!

(05-25-2011 04:46 PM)Mike_Hunt Wrote:  What have Cummings and Robinson done to be cancers?

Hunt every player on our roster hates Cummings. He is selfish player. Big deal he scores 20. We lose.

We only have to recruit for a 1 year ban, which isn't much, and to be honest, with the loss of scholarship, we won't recruit much for next year either, so we are probably only signing 1-2 guys at most next year. After that the post season ban will be lifted, we will start to scholarships back and we will be back on the road to recovery. We get rid of 5 of our best players, then will lost 25 games this coming year...we can have a good season this year with that talent in place.