DeCourcy on Knight, draft, Buffs

It's the college football bowl season but today we bring you the "other" sport played this time of year, basketball, and an exclusive interview with Mike DeCourcy of The Sporting News, a senior writer for that publication, a college sports writer for 25 years, and a man who has covered 17 Final Fours.

Some of the topics we discussed: Bobby Knight, the all-time win's record, the new age limit for the NBA draft, attractive coaching candidates for Colorado, how the school can elevate the program, and some interesting basketball books.

Black and Gold Truth: Hi Mike. First of all, a question on Bobby Knight, a guy you wrote of recently. There was the interesting comparison you made to his accomplishments, as far as total wins, to North Carolina coach Dean Smith and how Smith's achievement was more impressive.

Looking down the road with Knight, how many more wins and seasons do you believe he has left?

DeCourcy: I covered Joe Paterno for nine seasons at Penn State and I was absolutely certain that I would write the story of his retirement. I left the beat in 1992.

So I wouldn't even begin to hazard a guess how many more years Knight has left in him.

Let's be honest about Bob -- the way he has it set up (at Texas Tech) -- he doesn't do a lot of what other coaches do in the offseason. It's not a year-round thing for him so he can coach as long as his health holds out and as long as his interest doesn't wane.

BGT: Do you believe the image Knight puts forth that he truly doesn't care about the record, that it is about the players and just coaching because it's his passion?

DeCourcy: I think he wants it. I think it became more important to him after he got let go at Indiana, for him to get back and show he can still do it his way. So I think to downplay it the way he does is being disingenuous.

BGT: Coach K at Duke, Roy Williams at North Carolina -- where might they land down the line as far as victories?

DeCourcy: I've had this conversation with Roy and he's said there is no way that is ever going to happen (for him), that he wants to retire (before that point). Bobby Bowden and Joe Paterno do not want to retire. They want to coach until they are gone or infirmed.

Mike (Krzyzewski), I'm not sure about. If Knight stopped at some point, Mike could catch the record at a relatively young age but until Knight stops we won't know where that number (wins) is.

BGT: 10 years from now, who is the record holder for wins?

DeCourcy: I would suspect Bob would still have the record but Mike would probably be just about ready to take it and put it in a place where probably no one would ever get it.

BGT: The NBA's new age limit for the draft. Good for the college game or not, especially for the one-and-done guys?

DeCourcy: To me, it's not a question of what is good for college basketball but what is good for basketball and I think this definitely is a step in the right direction.

People think it's about individual choice and freedom and that's the most naive approach you can possibly take. When the age limit was not in force, there were so many elements involved in the process on whether a player would go directly from high school into the NBA draft that had absolutely nothing to do with a young man saying "I'm good enough."

There were shoe companies and agents and runners and family members and high school coaches and AAU coaches and 95 percent of them had no concern about the young man and 65 percent of them have no concept about what it takes to make it and 95 percent of them don't care if the kid makes it or not as long as (the player) can get picked.

And all of that is shoved aside if you put the kid into the college environment.

The college enterprise, as a whole, has a track record of producing successful NBA players; the greatest players in the history of the game went to college, almost without exception.

BGT: Who are the best mid-major coaches, Mike? From other conversations I've had, I keep hearing that that is where the next coach at Colorado is likely to come from.

DeCourcy: Mark Turgeon is a terrific young coach but he's making more money than Colorado is paying Ricardo Patton. Dana Altman has a long-term contract with Creighton and he's not going to leave it for Colorado.

The first thing I would do in looking for a new coach at Colorado is look for a distinct approach to the way the game is played, like Air Force did in football for years and lately, are doing in basketball.

Missouri, for example, taking on (coach) Mike Anderson and going with all-out pressure. That's the kind of move that I'd say would work well.

If I couldn't get (Denver Nuggets' assistant and former Metro State College coach) Mike Dunlap to take the job -- he would be my singular choice to take it -- I would say "o.k., he plays it differently out there and let's get that guy" then I would look at a type like Vance Walberg at Pepperdine or Chris Lowery at Southern Illinois.

Those types of games with Lowery, with defense, you may not draw more fans because it's exciting but you might because they win.

BGT: You mentioned Dunlap and you've written about him in the past. What about him makes him an attractive candidate for CU?

DeCourcy: In watching him in clinics I found him to be a really bright basketball mind. I hesitate to use the word "genius" but he is extremely bright.

The people that I know, who know basketball, hold him in the highest esteem. He has won national championships at the Division II level and we've seen lower-level success translate to higher-level success as it did with Bo Ryan at Wisconsin (currently ranked no. 4) as it did with Dick Bennett (Final 4 appearance) at Wisconsin.

You probably have to make sure your staff includes some heavy-hitting recruiters because you haven't had that guy as a D-2 coach.

And I'm sure (Dunlap) has paid attention to Colorado over the years and what it has and hasn't done well.

BGT: How do you build a program like CU's into one that can be an NCAA-caliber one?

DeCourcy: Part of the problem is not enough people are frustrated. The thing that Colorado has to get done is what Florida has got done and Ohio State has got done and Texas has done, to a lesser extent and that is, Colorado fans have to be Colorado fans. They don't have to be big basketball fans but they have to be Colorado fans. They can't say "it's only basketball, who cares? They have to say, it's our team." That's happened at Florida and Ohio State.

Florida has won a national championship and they are not a basketball school and they will never be a basketball school. It's a Gator school. They love the Gators.

Or Ohio State -- they love the Buckeyes and when the Buckeyes are playing (the fans) are in the building and when the game ends, they start talking about college football recruiting and that's what Colorado needs to get.

BGT: How did Billy Donovan and Thad Matta do it, change the culture at those schools?

DeCourcy: They didn't change the culture that much.

To some extent they did it at Florida and they did it with success but you can connect to your community and Matta and Donovan are like that -- charismatic guys that you want to be a part of.

BGT: Let's talk about some basketball books, Mike, some ones you have written. What can you tell us about Inside Basketball -- From the Playgrounds to the NBA, and Legends of College Basketball?

DeCourcy: The legends book is a ranking of the top 100 college basketball players of all time and we polled our staff, ran it by experts and, there are no CU players on it, but there are quite a few Big 12 players.

The one thing I regret is I wanted to start more fights. I wanted to some really good bar room conversation.

BGT: How about a tease for those who haven't yet read the book? Who's near the top of that list?

DeCourcy: The top of the list, in no particular order, is Bill Russell, Pete Maravich, Oscar Robertson, Bill Walton and Lew Alcindor.

BGT: What about the two-year players, Mike? Any of those guys?

DeCourcy: What we did was set a rule. You had to play at least three years or if you played two years, you had to win (the national championship).

There were no one-year players. We published before Carmelo (Anthony).

BGT: Would he have been in the book?

DeCourcy: I think we would have had a real interesting conversation about that.

If Kenyon Martin got voted into the book and I wasn't sure I agreed with that choice, but for the 1999-2000 season, that one year, he was as good as anybody in college basketball in the last 15-20 years. The rest of his career was just o.k. So with Carmelo, that one year was pretty special.

BGT: Inside Basketball, give me some specifics if you will about that book?

DeCourcy: It was published about 10 years ago. It's sort of a comprehensive look at what basketball is, what the ideas of the game are, where it came from, who the great players have been. It's beautifully illustrated and has some essays I was able to do. It probably is still floating around somewhere on Amazon.com. You can probably can find a copy there.