Pressure is on Krebs to pick right replacement for Neal
C’mon, baby, daddy needs a new pair of shoes. Go ahead and puff some good luck onto those dice and let ’er rip.
In this case, the new pair of shoes is The University of New Mexico’s quest for a multimillion-dollar revenue stream that has dried up faster than a Northern New Mexico arroyo, and the rolling of the dice is finding a new men’s basketball coach who can help them find it.
Now is not the time for anything less than spectacular, and UNM athletic director Paul Krebs knows it. The pressure is squarely on him to get this right, because the future is riding on landing the one coach who can put Humpty Dumpty back together again.
Let’s face it, Lobo basketball is broken; broken worse than anyone has seen it since the fallout of the Lobogate years. No postseason for three straight seasons, no hope of doing anything other than making headlines for infighting, embarrassing losses and hovering around .500.
Krebs has said the interest in his program is high and the candidates he has spoken to have the pedigree of success that suggests he’s on the right track. That better be the case because UNM needs to win this or run the risk of something that seemed impossible even in the darkest of times; The Pit’s attendance continues to drop and its halfcentury of sustained support goes away. Minus the cash cow that is a healthy Lobo hoops program, the school’s athletic department will have to tighten its belt even more as it tries to remain relevant as a mid-major outfit in a mid-major conference.
Without the right coach with the right winning formula, Lobo basketball has proven it can no longer carry the weight of the entire department like it did back in the good ol’ days.
Ahh, the good ol’ days. Remember them? Back when Dave Bliss’ teams made four
straight trips to the NCAA Tournament’s second round and no one was happy about it? When Steve Alford’s clubs were masterful on the road and eliminated the stress of living on the tournament bubble, playing with a gritty toughness not seen here before?
Of course you do. The good ol’ days never got better than that. From this vantage point, they never looked so good.
Given the historical reference UNM has provided its fans, it won’t ever get better than that, either.
Before the school rolls those dice, it’s best to leave behind the hopes and dreams of playing in a stadium late in the tournament or having pundits pick the Lobos as a Final Four challenger. Getting there may never happen, not even with the right coach and stacks of cash high enough to feed the rest of the department.
What the school needs to worry about is not making a splash with its new hire. That will probably happen no matter who it is. He’ll come in wearing the cherry blazer, dominate the news conference and use enough one-liners to win back some of those ticket holders. No matter how bad it gets, attendance should get a slight boost with the fresh perspective.
But here’s the thing: In this new coach the school needs a charismatic, excitable leader who can pull the Lobos from the wreckage of the Craig Neal era and make it what it once was, not make it what the fans dream it to be.
He needs to get people in the seats and make The Pit something slightly more than the collection of disenfranchised people it has become.
So roll those dice, UNM. It better be good or heads will roll.