Co-Sign: Chris Lowery Is In A No-Win Situation

If the SIU job is Texas Roadhouse, DePaul can't be Gibson's, can it?

That is today's discussion upon reading Stile T. Smith's piece in the Daily Egyptian titled "Lowery in a no-win situation." 

For full disclosure, Smith is a friend, a former understudy of mine and a one-time TBDS poster.  But that is not why I am about to defend him.

I'm defending him because he makes valid points, which often doesn't happen when Cardinals fans are given a forum to speak their mind.

Lowery in a no-win situation
Sports with Stile

When he wins games, the rumors that he’s going to leave for a big-name school start and fans call him a traitor.

To prove this, take a time machine or your buddy's DeLorean, dial up March 2007, get to 88 MPH and let the good times roll.  Lowery has been one of the hottest coaching commodities since building on what Bruce Weber and Matt Painter did en route to posting a 78-26 record, winning two regular season Missouri Valley Conference titles, a MVC Tournament championship and a Sweet 16 berth.

When he doesn’t win, fans say he’s a terrible coach and the university should fire him.

See this thread at SalukiTalk.

No matter how his team performs, Chris Lowery can’t win.

Unless, of course, the team wins.  Then technically, he wins.  And unless that's John Calipari on that bench, I don't see any wins getting vacated or banners being pulled down any time soon.

Now, any job is performance-based, whether it be as an accountant or a grocery store bagger, if the job is not performed correctly someone else will fill it.

Kurt Warner agrees with this statement.  Had Johnny not come into the store that day looking for a job to pay for that nasty drug habit a new car when he turned 16, who knows if Warner would have ever been forced out into the NFL job market.

But one season with a sub-.500 record and another where the team is 12-7 so far should not bring calls for Lowery’s job.

I know a lot of people consider the 2008 NIT team a failure because of the high standards built with this program.  Whatever.  Shit happens.  Matt Shaw's field goal and 3-point percentages went down -- Lowery's fault, right?  Randal Falker was being triple teamed -- Lowery's fault right?  SIU didn't capitalize on its Sweet 16 year in its following season because of Shaw's struggles and the fact that Tony Young and Jamaal Tatum were ineligible to compete due to graduation, thus ushering in the Josh Bone, Wes Clemmons, Tyrone Green era.

The 13-18 year was an absolute abortion.  Those happen with every program.  Except Duke.  Not sure how Duke does it, but if the Coach K tree of Quin Snyder and Tommy Amaker are any indication, it probably deserves some looking into.

In a way, Lowery has it more difficult than coaches at schools such as Duke and Michigan State that win every year, or Nebraska and Ole Miss, who are never expected to win.

At least Ole Miss has hot, blonde SEC tail .

Mike Krzyzewski at Duke and Tom Izzo at Michigan State do not have to deal with the constant rumors that they are bolting for greener pastures, mostly because there are not too many greener pastures.

That's because the campuses in East Lansing and Durham have a little more appeal than the one in Carbondale.  And actually have greener pastures than Carbondale, which a friend once described as "what Detroit would look like if it were a college town."

Doc Sadler at Nebraska and Andy Kennedy at Ole Miss do not have to worry about an entire fan base calling for their heads when they have one or two seasons when they do not make it to the NCAA Tournament, mostly because they have not been to the NCAA Tournament in years.

Girls of the SEC and Nebraska football are the best things to happen to each of those programs, respectively.

Lowery has to deal with both sides of the spectrum.

As hard as it is for some to admit, SIU is not Arizona or Michigan, two schools who were rumored to be interested in Lowery in years past. If those schools come calling and offer Lowery a big enough contract, he is not being a Benedict Arnold if he accepts.

Nor is it Oklahoma State or DePaul.  Believe it or not, the four previously mentioned schools are not the only universities that have come a-callin' for Southern's head coach.  A source recently confided in me that a SEC school had called for Lowery's services before being turned down immediately.  A second source added that one team sent representative's to Lowery's house unannounced.

Lowery once told us in an interview that we would be surprised how many schools, big and small, have contacted his agent in regard to getting him to leave his alma mater.  As of right now, Lowery has no interest in leaving Southern.

Labeling Lowery a traitor for possibly being interested in improving on the situation he is in is wrong.


If I am the head chef at Texas Roadhouse and a five-star restaurant offers me a position as its head chef, you can believe I am going to take it.

I think the Texas Roadhouse line might have been a little out of step.  But the point at face value remains. 

Pretend for just a minute that you are at a job in your home town (we'll call it Carbondale for this argument's sake) and you're very happy with it.  If a competitor contacts you and offers you double your salary, plus cost of living expenses to move you and your family to New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago or any major market, you can't tell me you would not at least consider the proposition.

Comedian Chris Rock once said, "A man is only as faithful as his options."

It is a saying that can be applied here.

Lowery has a young team that seems to be turning the corner. He has a 12-7 team that is losing one player this year and has a potentially great player in Diamond Taylor arriving next season.

I know a lot of people are saying "big whoop, two game winning streak."  The reason SIU has won back-to-back games is because of execution.  Southern isn't doing anything different other than guarding the piss out of people again.  As a wise man once told me, "Good things happen in basketball when you play defense."

If Nick Evans secures a rebound and SIU executes at the end of the Drake game, it's a win.  If Tony Freeman or Carlton Fay connects on a clean 3-point opportunity and the Salukis execute, it's a win.  Rather than a 12-7 overall record and a 4-5 record in MVC play, you're looking at a 14-5 mark overall and 6-3 conference record that puts you in the Valley's top three rather than being in seventh eighth place looking down at Indiana State and Evansville, while looking up at a clusterfuck of mediocrity.

As for Taylor, he can become what Tony Freeman is.  And rather than have him for just one season, Southern would have him for four years.  On top of that, SIU will have Taylor at ages 21, 22, 23 and 24.  Experience kills in the Valley, everyone knows that.

And if the Salukis do rebound next season and return to the NCAA Tournament, do not be surprised when you hear Lowery’s name mentioned in some high-profile coaching searches.

If Lowery wanted a legit job at a power conference school, he would be wise to ride it out at SIU.  In 2012, Kevin Dillard, Anthony Booker, Nick Evans and Justin Bocot will be seniors.  Kendall Brown-Surles and Eugene Teague will be juniors, Diamond Taylor will be a sophomore.

If that team doesn't make a dent in the NCAA Tournament, then we can resume the fear of one of the big boys taking "our" coach.

That's assuming he wants to leave SIU.

Lowery in a no-win situation [Daily Egyptian]

The Buried Lead In The Milton Bradley Saga

Until Crazy Uncle Milton says his official goodbye, this will be the final time The Big Dead Sidebar writes about Milton Bradley.

Celebrate accordingly.

I have defended Bradley, the baseball player, throughout this season.  Honestly, if his name was not associated with a board game, Cubs fans would have been thrilled to add a guy who led the American League in OPS.  However, there was no defending Milton Bradley, the person.

But this isn't about that.  No.  The upcoming post is about something bigger than that.  Bigger than that, you ask?  Follow me after the jump.

The buried lead in the entire Milton Bradley fiasco is the fact that it all came about thanks to the damn good reporting of the Daily Herald's Bruce Miles.  For those of you keeping score at home, Bruce Miles is the Cubs beat writer for the Daily Herald, located in Arlington Heights, Ill., a suburb of Chicago.  So, take note that the byline that started it all did not appear in the Chicago Tribune or Chicago Sun-Times.

(I'm not saying Paul Sullivan couldn't have done it, but MB was going Drew Rosenhaus on his ass during interviews.  Gordon Wittenmyer is a joke, and I'm assuming CST employs him as it bides its time 'til yours truly returns home. I digress.)

Why is this a big deal?  It's a big deal because like most newspapers in the country, the Daily Herald is having its own money issues.  To help offset costs, it has stopped sending its beat writers on road trips.  As noted by Andy Dolan of Desipio, this is a terrible disservice to the newspaper and the people that read the newspaper -- also known as the people that newspapers once catered to.

At the tender age of 23, I learned that valuable lesson at my old college newspaper stomping grounds.  Our sports desk was slashed in half to three.  As the staff shrunk, so did the column inches.  Eventually, so did the travel budget.  In fact, our bi-weekly paychecks served as the travel budget as the staff traveled to more Midwestern college towns than College Drunkfest.

It's true, sending a beat writer can be quite an expense, but in my humble opinion, it was the price worth paying to get the entire story.  Not just what we could see on television or hear on the radio. Trust me, it's hard to get a scoop when you're sitting in a newsroom or somewhere on campus when the real action is hundreds of miles away

The dateline in The Story shows that Miles found a way down I-55 to get to El Casa De Albert to get the story that helped bring down the Bradley Era.  Miles should probably get something equivalent to a medal of honor from the baseball scribes of America.  And if he traveled to St. Louis on his own time, he should get two.  Think about it like this, had Miles not been on that trip, would this have happened?  Dealing Bradley -- definitely would have happened.  But not in this nut-busting fashion.

It's the crash and burn ending many fans wanted Bradley to have from the get-go.  And to think, it would not have happened if Bruce Miles had not taken one fateful trip to St. Louis.


Here's to you Bruce.  Despite the efforts of colleagues such as Jay Mariotti, Rick Morrissey and Phil Rogers, your extraordinary effort shows why good sports journalism will not die.