One could say that before any sports season begins, all the participants are hard to read. However, you can sense what’s meant underneath the surface of that expression.
The St. Louis Cardinals baseball team is going to win 90-something games, maybe 100. The Seattle Mariners are going to stumble.
The Tom Brady New England Patriots are going to win the AFC East, and the Cleveland Browns are going to fail.
The Chicago Blackhawks will rise in the month of May. The St. Louis Blues will fall.
Stephen Curry will make jump shots. The Memphis Grizzlies won’t.
For better or worse, plenty of people and teams in sports can be read like a book — a sixth-grade-level book, not a Dostoyevsky novel. Plenty of athletic programs in college exist in cloudy realms, shrouded in uncertainty. They might have tasted a lot of success in the past, but seem headed for failure. They might have stumbled in recent years, but could be on their way to a brighter tomorrow.
Which team and which coach are the hardest to read and pin down in college hoops?
Ryan Palencer and I tackle these questions:
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THE TEAM THAT’S HARD TO READ HEADING INTO THE NEW SEASON
RYAN PALENCER
Iowa State — With the departure of Fred Hoiberg and a group of players who seem to disappoint in key moments, Iowa State is a team everyone wants to get excited about, but has a hard time justifying the investment of emotion. Dustin Hogue and Bryce Dejean-Jones will be tough offensive losses for the team, but the Cyclones also return table-setting point guard Monte Morris and All-Big 12 performer Georges Niang, along with Jameel McKay, who showed flashes of brilliance last season. The addition of new coach Steve Prohm should be a good fit for the high-powered offense, but it will be interesting to see how long the transition takes.
MATT ZEMEK
The hardest team to get a read on is SMU.
Yes, a team ineligible for the NCAA tournament might cease to matter for many of us, but how well SMU plays is of concern to everyone else in The American. The Mustangs need to play well in order for a possible bubble team such as Tulsa to make the field. Will Nic Moore and Markus Kennedy — the unlucky recipients of that correct goaltending call (enforcing a horrible rule which must be modified) against UCLA — play hard even though a March ticket has been withheld from them this season? Who knows? Head-coach-in-waiting Tim Jankovich gets a chance to fill in for Larry Brown for several weeks. Let’s see what tone he sets for the Ponies.
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THE COACH THAT’S HARD TO READ
PALENCER
Kevin Ollie — Ollie earned himself a lot of money and several interesting job offers after leading the Huskies to the national championship out of nowhere two seasons ago. However, losing some scoring punch led to a disappointing 2015 campaign. This coaching situation has the feel of “too much too soon” for the former NBA veteran, who quickly turned into a successful college coach. The AAC has the look of a conference which will endure another down season, which could be tough on Ollie’s resume.
ZEMEK
The hardest coach for me to read in college basketball is Avery Johnson at Alabama.
I give the Crimson Tide credit for responding creatively to the realization that Gregg Marshall was never going to become their head coach. They had to go outside the box, and they did. Whether Johnson will succeed or not is an open question, but Alabama didn’t play it safe and go with a college retread. Johnson has coached in an NBA Finals (although as Byron Scott shows us, coaching in consecutive NBA Finals — not just one — doesn’t mean you’re automatically an exceptionally strong coach). He was not given an adequate chance to prove himself with the Brooklyn Nets. He’s hungry. Yet, what makes him able to win at Alabama that Anthony Grant didn’t have? Grant was seen as a coach on the rise when the took the job in Tuscaloosa. The hire made a lot of sense, and it didn’t work out. Avery Johnson is utterly a mystery — not as a man, but as a coach.
