{"id":11652,"date":"2012-03-29T18:29:45","date_gmt":"2012-03-29T23:29:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/?p=11652"},"modified":"2012-03-29T18:29:45","modified_gmt":"2012-03-29T23:29:45","slug":"schuster-manning-a-tough-loss-for-ku","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/2012\/03\/29\/schuster-manning-a-tough-loss-for-ku\/","title":{"rendered":"Schuster: Manning A Tough Loss For KU"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Blake Schuster <\/strong><\/p>\n

The moment I found out Danny Manning was leaving for Tulsa\u2019s head coaching position on Wednesday evening I was in the middle of creating a foot long at a Subway right on the border between Arkansas and Missouri. I had been out of cell service for the past two hours and when I finally got on Twitter Manning to Tulsa was all but done. The sub was the first thing I would consume all day, and yet midway through my order I lost all desire to eat.<\/strong>\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

How do you react to something like that? When you\u2019ve known for years that Danny Manning has earned the right to run his own program, but you secretly wish against it happening, what is the right response?<\/p>\n

As I sat and forced a Turkey BLT into my stomach, I didn\u2019t so much as think how I felt about the situation, but someone else, Kansas Athletic Director Sheahon Zenger. Only a little more than a year since he\u2019s taken office he\u2019s exhausted all of his energy to find a football coach, and now one of his biggest basketball assets is leaving.<\/p>\n

What do you say to that? How can you possibly sit in your office and be happy when you know how much Manning means, not just to the school, but also to the entire Lawrence community?<\/p>\n

\u201cYou don\u2019t replace Danny Manning as an individual, but as a position,\u201d Zenger said. \u201cKansas basketball is at such a level that there\u2019ll be quite a line of people to jump in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s absolutely true, how many people wouldn\u2019t line up to be an assistant at a blue blood that has eight consecutive Big 12 titles, overseen by arguably the best coach in college basketball over the last decade?<\/p>\n

Not many.<\/p>\n

But as much as Zenger has removed the idea of replacing Manning, how do you react to him walking out the door?<\/p>\n

How do you let someone who is your all-time leading scorer and rebounder, someone who has such strong roots in the region, and someone who is as good at developing talent as him, leave seeing you smiling in the rearview mirror?<\/p>\n

Before extensive time with Manning, Jeff Withey was almost frightened to touch the ball in a game; in twelve months he became the Big 12 Defensive Player of the year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe gave me a lot of confidence,\u201d Withey said. \u201cEveryday we get a lot of shots off with him, we work on my footwork, post moves, and he gives a lot of tricks when were playing.\u201d<\/p>\n

How do you react to someone like that taking another job?<\/p>\n

Manning means so much the history of Kansas basketball, and more importantly its future. How often do you find an assistant coach that can be the deciding factor in a recruit\u2019s college choice, as Manning was with Perry Ellis and still might be with Tony Parker?<\/p>\n

When you look at Kansas since Manning was injected into the coaching ring in 2003, it\u2019s hard not to be impressed with what he\u2019s done with Jayhawk post players. Wayne Simien, Julian Wright Darrell Arthur, Darnell Jackson, Sasha Kahn, Cole Aldrich, and the Morris twins all played under the tutelage of Manning, all were drafted into the NBA \u2014 and that\u2019s not including what the future holds for Thomas Robinson and Jeff Withey.<\/p>\n

How do you react to letting someone who was more than instrumental in nine conference titles, three Final Four\u2019s, and two National Championships \u2014 with a possible third on the way \u2014 walk out the door?<\/p>\n

Do you just bite your tongue because he\u2019s earned the chance to run a program?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen your team is successful you always hope that your assistants have an opportunity to benefit from your team\u2019s success. \u201c Bill Self said.<\/p>\n

But does that translate to winning on his own? What does he bring to the Tulsa table?<\/p>\n

\u201cHe understands the game,\u201d Kevin Young said. \u201cThe thing that [Tulsa will] get from him is that he wants to win and will teach you how to win. He works with things on how we pivot, and little things that nobody stops to correct you with at this level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kansas can afford to lose a coach, but where do you start to look for anybody else? It might be near impossible to bring in someone with an attitude, focus, and knowledge like number 25 in the Allen Fieldhouse rafters.<\/p>\n

So if I\u2019m sitting in Zenger\u2019s chair how do I react to a legend leaving?<\/p>\n

I do it with a smile, a firm handshake, and a final message:<\/p>\n

Go make Kansas bring you back.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Blake Schuster The moment I found out Danny Manning was leaving for Tulsa\u2019s head coaching position on Wednesday evening I was in the middle of creating a foot long at a Subway right on the border between Arkansas and Missouri. I had been out of cell service for the past two hours and when I finally got on Twitter Manning to Tulsa was all but done. The sub was the first thing I would consume all day, and yet […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":11653,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/NCAA20Basketball20Logo15.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11652"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11652\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11653"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11652"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11652"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kjhk.org\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11652"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}