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« Postgame: K-State 69, Nebraska 53Insights from an assistant: Moving on without Wally Judge, beating NebraskaFew know more about the Kansas State basketball team than its assistant coaches. Here at K-Stated, we realize this. That’s why we are proud to interview Brad Underwood on a regular basis and pass along his insightful comments. The highlights this week: Moving on without Wally Judge, hitting the recruiting trail to replace him and what it meant to beat Nebraska.Wally Judge deciding to leave has been the main topic of conversation this week. So let’s start there. Were you surprised to show up to work Monday and learn he had quit the team?“I didn’t see it coming. He had been an active participant the game before. He played a lot of minutes against Kansas. There had been no sign of it from my standpoint. He had practiced well. He had not played great in the Kansas game, but he had great energy. “It’s hard to tell sometimes what goes through a young man’s mind and what leads him to the decisions he makes. He walked in, talked to Frank (Martin) and that was the end. But, again, there was no indication, because he had played sparingly in the five previous games. All of a sudden he plays against Kansas and it looks like he was doing OK. I really wish I had a great explanation for you, but I sure don’t.â€Judge isn’t the only player to quit in the middle of the season. Freddy Asprilla left before the Texas Tech game. Losing two players on the front line like that has to be tough, but what is the toughest thing about it?“I tell people this all the time and I truly believe it: You can win games at the mid-major level based on talent. You can have more talent than somebody and win on that alone. But at the high-major level it is about total commitment. You have to have a team that has everybody totally committed to each other and totally committed to the unit.“Wally’s ups and downs and struggles have been well-documented this year. If you don’t have that total commitment you can’t win and you can’t be successful at this level. All I can tell you is we had two of our best practices since early in the year on Monday and Tuesday and we won on Wednesday.“I don’t know what led to our great practices, but we’ve played games without Freddy and we’ve played a lot of games without Wally. It’s not an ultra-big change to our team, but I think there is a great commitment from everyone in that locker room now. To each other and to the team. That’s something we’ve been looking for as a unit all year.â€I don’t want to spend too much time on Wally, but why don’t you think he ever lived up the high expectations everyone had for him at K-State?“Here’s the thing: There’s tremendous pressure put on kids, and sometimes that is not deserved. I think that he played hard and he challenged himself every single day. Why that happened, I can’t explain it. We coached him no different than we did Mike Beasley or Bill Walker or Denis Clemente or Luis Colon or Darren Kent. “It’s a different game at this level. It’s a different mental approach every single day. Sometimes kids maximize their potential early. Sometimes they do it late. There is a wide spectrum of possibilities. He’s a great young man. He worked hard for us every single day. He came in here with high expectations, as we did. For whatever reason, it didn’t work for Wally and that’s why he’s no longer with us.â€OK, so that leaves you with a hole to fill in the middle next year. Is it now imperative that you use his open scholarship to recruit another big man?“Yeah, no question about that. It’s not that we haven’t been recruiting. We thought we were done. But we still keep pretty good tabs on kids. We’ve been out seeing guys. The hard thing about it is it’s hard to replace a big, especially in a 2011 class that overall isn’t a great class in terms of depth. “So many kids sign early now that there’s not as many options as there were. It’s not just Kansas State, it’s every school in that situation. It puts us back in the market, and it puts us pretty aggressively back in the market. You change the aggressiveness with which you go after kids. Before you were making a periodic call to a kid’s coach. Now you’re full-on recruiting them. In college basketball, when you’re dealing with kids you prepare for the unexpected. In today’s society that’s something you can’t overlook.“We’re not totally unprepared. We didn’t know if Wally would go pro after the year. We prepared for that, and we kept recruiting. You have to prepare for all those things. In high-major basketball you never stop recruiting. You’re always prepared for that extra scholarship. When it comes open like it has with us, that’s just when things actually get pretty urgent.â€K-State beat Nebraska 69-53 last night. How good did that feel coming off the loss to Kansas?“It was real nice, but I really expected us to play well last night. That Kansas game kind of slid off my back for some reason. When you go back and look at the film and look at some of the shots we missed early, it’s like, ‘Boy, what could have been.’ Things just steam rolled. I don’t know how to explain that, because I normally don’t shake off losses. It’s frustrating to lose to our arch rival, and it was strange because I’ve been really upset over losses we’ve had to them. I’m an ultra-competitive person. “But our guys came in on Monday and were ready to go. We had played pretty well going into that Kansas game. I guess it happens. Michigan State had it happen to them the other night. Duke had it happen to them at St. John’s. You have a game or two you can’t really explain. It’s unfortunate it happened to us against Kansas. But I really expected us to play well last night, and we did.“(Jacob Pullen) played great for us defensively, and everything had a nice flow to it. Curtis Kelly was really tuned in.â€What did you think Curtis did well?“He played hard, which was good. But his attention to detail was as good as it’s been all year. He didn’t miss many screens. That’s something that he hasn’t been doing recently. He played well, and when he plays well it makes a big difference.â€Jordan Henriquez-Roberts was solid with eight rebounds, as well. But what happens if two of those guys get in foul trouble at some point? Who is the next option off the bench?“I feel confident in Victor Ojeleye. He’s been there, he’s been through it. Alex (Potuzak) is going to be a good player, but physically he isn’t quite there yet. The other thing we feel very comfortable with is playing small with Rodney McGruder. We did that against Kansas, and Rodney did a very good job in that game guarding Marcus Morris. “He may not be as big as some, but on the flip side those guys have to guard him. That can be tough for a big to come out on him. Rodney is our leading rebounder. He’s effective down there. He’s a pretty deceiving post player. We shouldn’t feel uncomfortable watching him post up.â€Read more: http://blogs.kansas.com/kstated/2011/02/03/insights-from-an-assistant-moving-on-without-wally-judge-beating-nebraska/#ixzz1D0Ge9Xcx
I didn’t see it coming. He had been an active participant the game before. He played a lot of minutes against Kansas. There had been no sign of it from my standpoint.
QuoteI didn’t see it coming. He had been an active participant the game before. He played a lot of minutes against Kansas. There had been no sign of it from my standpoint.I'm sorry, but this is BS. Wally was thrown to the wolves against KU when nothing else was working for the team. How is giving a kid meaning less minutes in a blowout going to encourage/motivate the kid?
I didn’t see it coming. He had been an active participant the game before. He played a lot of minutes against Kansas. There had been no sign of it from my standpoint.
Wally had a ton of mintues and a chance was given to him to make it not a blow out game. With Kelly only have 10 minutes the work load of keeping us in it was given to our McD All American. He couldn't handle it and like the other times we've depended on individuals on this team he folded.
