July 13, 2007

Bright future for SJSU basketball?

Kevin McCarthy
 

Historian Henry Steele Commager once said, "Change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress implacably requires change." San Jose State men’s basketball has been irrelevant for decades. Despite a number of coaches assuming the role of change agent and offering their prescription for a role reversal, none could pull off a makeover for Spartan basketball. But that’s about to change.

photo of SJSU basketball coaches SJSU basketball coaches
From the casual to most diehard of its fans, agreement is unanimous that the San Jose State University (SJSU) men’s basketball program has been woeful for...well, just about forever.

New coaches arrived bristling with the best of intentions but eventually departed, broken in spirit as seasons concluded with one constant: dreadful win-loss records.

Even Spartan fans willing to settle for mediocrity were continually disappointed.

Then, in 2004 a new sheriff arrived in town, bringing in his handpicked deputies. Newly-hired Director of Athletics Tom Bowen came over from the San Francisco 49er’s front office, bringing in Bay Area native George Nessman to turn around the fortunes of Spartan men’s hoops.

The sledding has remained tough, exemplified by a 6-25 initial season, followed by a 5-25 one.

But an explanation is begged.

The first two years of Nessman’s tenure were played out primarily with players associated with the previous coaching staff. Nessman made the decision--unlike many of his fellow coaching brethren--not to pressure or run off any existing student-athletes on the roster when he arrived. He honored the commitment the university originally made to these student-athletes, despite paying the resulting price in his team’s collective win-loss record.

But it is also important to note that a dismal record was not the sole contributor to the longheld anathematic public view of the SJSU men’s program. Poor graduation rates, the school having the well-earned label of Junior College Transfer U and the inexcusably shabby treatment of its student-athletes also endowed this reputation.

But there is finally a beacon of light on the horizon and its looming larger and brighter.

SJSU has been released from captivity on the no-go-to school list. Getting out of basketball jail has swelled the talent on the roster to the point that the Spartans now possesses the best collective set of freshmen and sophomores of any Western Athletic Conference (WAC) team.

This freeing is the result of a number of factors. The laurels Nessman has received for honoring the word of a previous coach have only added to his already established reputation for fairness and integrity compiled while winning big at the junior college level. This combination has cumulatively raised the previous dim view of SJSU in the eyes of many of the high school, junior college and club team coaches and players in the Bay Area and throughout northern California.

Nessman’s credibility meant San Jose State University was no longer captaining the to-be-avoided-at-all-costs list of schools for local and regional talent.

photo of Mac Peterson
Conference MVP at Diablo Valley College, Mac Peterson, joins the Spartans lineup in 2007-08

Here’s the members of the Spartan underclass group, a set of five frontcourters and four backcourters:

All have either starting potential or the skills set to be prominent members of the playing rotation. Plus, in a dramatic reversal, only one is a junior college transfer--Peterson--and he has three years of eligibility remaining.

Plus, underlining the remarkable transformation in recruiting, Graham, Caballero, Oakes and Peterson are local/regional talents--something verboten pre-Nessman.

Graham, a point guard, entered the program last year from Ripon High School and was a planned redshirt who will have freshman athletic eligibility. Caballero is a center who came from Alisal High School in Salinas and possesses the same status.

Oakes is a frontcourt transfer from Pepperdine and, prior to that, Castlemont High School in Oakland. He will have sophomore eligibility after sitting out the first six games of the upcoming season. The sharp-shooting Peterson, out of Deer Valley High in Antioch, will arrive in San Jose after a freshmen season where he earned most valuable player in the conference at Diablo Valley College.

Because of the aforementioned litany of SJSU woes, none of these local/regional student-athletes would have given SJSU as much as a sniff prior to the arrival of Nessman and his staff.

Graham, instead of being the projected starting point for the 2007-08 Spartans, would be coming to The Event Center as a member of an opposing team to help beat SJSU if any other coaching staff had been in place. Caballero wanted to stay local despite receiving offers to leave the state but there’s no way he would be a Spartan under a previous coaching regime. Pre-Nessman, Oakes would more than likely have transferred to Fresno State or USF and there’s no way Diablo Valley Coach Steve Coccimiglio would have let Peterson, his star player, get anywhere near Silicon Valley, prior to Nessman’s hire.

That’s transformation.

This obviously bodes very well for the future of SJSU’s mens basketball for these are players who are going to be on campus for three or four seasons. SJSU finally has the makings of a foundation and, from now on, the focus of recruiting will be to fill certain niches rather than the building of an entire team and program. This simply hasn’t ever happened before in modern times--a remarkable changeover from woe-is-us to possessing the necessary talent and potential levels where getting the players the experience and knowledge necessary to compete nightly are now the core coaching tasks.

McDowell, Amberry and Buggs are southern Californians. Their presence on the SJSU roster establishes that the new crew in San Jose has revitalized Sparta as a player in the SoCal recruiting ranks once again.

Consider these points:

With the television world ablaze with make-over shows, San Jose State University mens basketball is finally worthy of a showtime.