A
man with curly
blond hair, an impish smile, and twinkling eyes, is doing yet another interview
explaining, for what seems like the 100th time, why his basketball team, which
finished the regular season badly and was bounced, ignominiously, from the Big
12 tournament, should be invited to the NCAAs. A few weeks ago, even a week
ago, he handled these interviews with his customary panache. But now, as he
talks about obscure RPI’s and Sagarin Ratings, well, it’s clear that his humor
and patience are about as out of style as the flattened down collars only he
and Billy Tubbs still wear.
He almost loses it, railing on idiots who’d dare consider his Longhorns a
bubble team. My god, he seems to say, casting his eyes toward heaven, looking
like the biblical plagues of the Pharaohs are set upon him, if those bozos
don’t let us in, just wait ’til you see who I’ll schedule next year. Draino
Tech’s mentioned. So is Angelo State, causing the offended Angelo coach to
offer up a brave challenge.
Some years back, Texas coach Abe Lemons opened his oftentimes intensely
bizarre TV show by dramatically rising from a coffin. Though most give Penders
full credit for raising the Texas program from a coffin colder than Abe’s, some
in Austin now think it’s time for the basketball program to grow up. Penders
guided the it through kindergarten, elementary school, and middle school. Now,
listening to him complain and carp, defending his team’s terrible recent play,
he’s seems stuck in adolescence. Penders, normally as media savvy as Bill
Clinton, lately seems pouty, almost petulant.
Were he the football coach, howls for his execution would have been heard ever
since a disastrous loss (filled with Longhorn miscues, both physical and
mental, a trend which never abated) early in the season to Louisville. But this
is basketball: Fans and media are, to put it blandly, more forgiving.
There are murmurings, though. For the first time, talk show callers are
asking questions. Penders’ run-and-gun tactics, his coaching decisions (or,
some think, a lack of any coaching at all) are being discussed. Some wish he
would, for just once, take some responsibility for the team’s wretched on-court
execution. Always, his comments are about his kids playing hard — this is
something special? — and how well the other team played.
The tournament loss to an inferior Missouri (15-16) was the season in
microcosm, as Texas is done in, again, by itself. In the first half alone, at
least 10 points are left on the rim or within a few feet of the basket on
missed lay-ups, dunks, and short jump-shots. Slappy, manic fouls (another ’96
characteristic) have Missouri quickly shooting free-throws. Bad shots follow
bad shots, as the Horns play their
last-man-with-the-ball-as-time-expires-shoots offense. Again, they’re
out-rebounded by a smaller team. After the game, though, none of what
transpired in front of a national TV audience is acknowledged. Our kids played
hard, and don’t talk to me about any damn bubble.
To be fair, Penders warned Austin fans, repeatedly, not to expect automatic
20-win seasons any more. Texas was in the Big, Bad Big 12 now. (Incidentally,
drowned in Big 12 hype is the fact that the league’s South division had only
one team, the disgraced Texas Tech, in the top 35 in Sagarin’s, a sorry
performance, ironically unworthy of the SWC in the worst of times). But now,
perhaps Penders needs to be reminded of his own message. Lately, he has acted
anything but big time, and his incessant carping is showing an uncharacteristic
lack of class. Does he believe the group of Cardinals who retire into the
sacred room in Kansas City be bullied and blustered into putting a team playing
bad basketball into its sainted tournament? A threat (what else to call it?) to
schedule 2A high school teams might raise an eyebrow; but did Louisville’s
Denny Crum, the bellwether of tough schedules, ever talk about playing Draino
when his team went in the tank?
To give the benefit of the doubt, nine years coaching in the SWC does not
constitute much experience in the “Big Time.” Though Penders has parleyed a
good wit, a relatively (those collars!) sharp wardrobe, and a successful
up-tempo style — too much for most SWC opponents — into a big time coaching
reputation, really, his experience with this kind of pressure and the harsh
glare of the national media light is negligible. He’s 10 years from Rhode
Island, but 10 years can be deceiving if you really only went from Peoria to
Corvallis, one basketball backwater to another.
His teams have the reputation of coming into March on top of their game, but
perhaps this was really an illusion. Who remembered some sloppy wins against
SMU and Rice and an almost automatic ride into the SWC tournament finals? We
only remember 25-8 records. Then a valiant, one-win run in the tournament.
Of course, Texas made the tournament field, helped by the increasingly bizarre
tale from the West Texas wastelands. And UT is, as always, a dangerous (if
one-dimensional) opponent — if the threes start dropping, any team can be in
trouble.
Still, questions are — for the first time in Penders’ criticism-free regime
— being raised. We’ll have to wait until next year to see if there are any
answers.
This article appears in March 14 • 1997 and March 14 • 1997 (Cover).