Perception is reality....Marquette needed to create a buzz but didn't

Perception is reality for a school like Marquette. Sure it has a grand tradition, some terrific coaches over the years, post season glory and a fan base that supports the basketball program financially and with ticket purchases. But perception remains reality for Marquette. MU is at it's strongest with a strong man at the helm of the basketball program. The type of man that might piss some fans off but rallies many others to the cause. Quite simply, a man that creates a buzz.

So it is with great irony (tragic perhaps) that MU hires a man nick named Buzz that seems to have caused anything but a thud. Perception is reality.

For as much hating of Tom Crean as there was from some MU alumni, Crean caused a buzz. Attendance was at an all-time high last year, this past year's squad was ranked again, went to the NCAAs for three straight years. We were recruiting nationally and landing better and better players each year. But Crean left and the buzz went with him, even if the Buzz didn't go with him.

So the last 7 nightmarish days have turned out to be prophetic for some of us. So many of us had hoped MU was finally past IT. Finally past the days of having to risk it on a coach that may or may not be the guy. Sure, every hire is a risk to some extent but there are levels of risk. After finishing in the top 25 and having a senior laden team returning next season, playing in the Big East, paying a $1.6 million salary to the previous coach, having fantastic facilities, 16,000+ attendance per game....why is this level of risk even necessary?

MU apparently tried to get Bennett and Miller. No doubt those would both be a reach and not surprising MU couldn't land them. They have their own wonderful programs in play, one is at state school with it's own built in advantages and the other plays in a watered down league which he can dominate. So, was option three Buzz Williams? Really? I suspect he may not have been but MU did feel he was in their top 5 all along.

So many of us wanted to believe we were past this...oh how wrong we were. In 1977, we hired an assistant in Hank Raymonds. A good X's and O's coach but no buzz to carry MU in a pro market where they need that charisma. In 1983 it was another MU assistant in Rick Majerus, who did not have the maturity or the self-confidence in his own skin yet to handle that position. In 1986, MU went with Bob Dukiet after others had accepted and turned down the position. Bob Dukiet...head coach of the Peacocks of St. Peter's College. Rolls off your tongue doesn't it.

Soon after Bill Cords took over and only two years later, Bob Dukiet was gone. Cords hired Kevin O'Neill. That was a great hire....a guy with buzz (in some cases more buzz then we thought). He put MU back on the map and in the process ticked off many MU blue hair alums. GET OVER IT. That's the trade off, some alums want a coach they can feel good about but more often then not you need someone that's going to get the job done and he might hurt a few feelings in the process, to bad! O'Neill left in 1994 to be replaced by Mike Deane. Deane was a terrific X's and O's coach but short on the buzz. Recruiting was not a strong suit and the public swagger needed to put MU over the top was in short supply. Enter Tom Crean, brash assistant from arguably the best program in the country at the time. Within 3 years took a non-postseason team to the NCAA and within 4 years to the Final Four. Many alums thought he was fake, arrogant, phony....he had the buzz whether those people want to admit it or not. People liked Tom or hated him, but they talked about him either way. He created a buzz.

And so 9 days after Crean's departure, MU seeing what that buzz has done for the university during McGuire, during O'Neill, and during Crean instead takes it literally and hires a guy named Buzz that creates none of it. That's not an indictment against Williams, who I pray turns out to be everything this administration thinks he will turn into. But history can be telling and in a city like Milwaukee at a school like Marquette, history could teach some valuable lessons. MU needed to create a buzz with this hire, a real buzz. MU failed in that category.

With the resources at its disposal, one would think MU could have gone in many directions. An assistant like Groce at Ohio State, a NCAA champion coach on the hot seat like Gary Williams, an established head coach ready to make the next move like Travis Ford or Brad Brownwell. Something that would have told MU's fans and the city of Milwaukee that MU got it, that MU wasn't going to go down that path again.

So ultimately the question is why? We asked 46 days ago, WHY COTTINGHAM? Now we ask WHY BUZZ? Is it to save a recruiting class that probably can't be saved, at least the two best players in that class? Is it keep continuity with the current team? Does anyone think James or McNeal are going to get drafted in the NBA this year? So if Taylor and Nick Williams decide not to come to Marquette, did MU just hire a 14-17 DI coach to keep "continuity" for a current team which likely isn't losing anyone either and to keep a recruiting class at 50% fulfilled? Couldn't we have delievered that with any number of other guys and also create a buzz at the same time?

Truth be told, I'm rooting very hard for Buzz Williams as would any MU fan. Next year MU should be quite good, though the potential transfer of Trevor Mbakwe will hurt. I hope in a few years to bring back this essay and say, I was dead wrong. Oh how I want to be dead wrong.

In the meantime, however, disappointment is the name of the game for me. MU again was in the batter's box with a chance to do something special and after fouling a few back (Miller and Bennett) decided instead of swinging hard, they let strike three go right down the middle.

Disappointing. Steve Cottingham and Buzz Williams have a terrific opportunity to prove me and many others flat wrong. Here's to you....the praying on my end has begun.