Frank Martin doesn't get enough credit at Kansas State
Martin Coaches Wildcats to a Big Win
Kansas State coach Frank Martin wanted to make one thing clear after what is arguably the Wildcats' most significant victory in the past quarter century:
The reason the Wildcats weren't given a chance against previously undefeated Kansas is because of him.
"Part of the reason that our young kids weren't given any credit for playing good teams the way we've played them is because of me," said Martin late Wednesday night after Kansas State's 84-75 win over Kansas ended a 24-game losing streak to KU in Manhattan. "I'm an unproven coach. I understand that. If a guy like Bob Huggins, who had won a ton of games, had been coaching those kids, it would be looked at like they were talented, scrappy and found ways to win."
Martin is right in his assessment. The first-year coach wasn't given much of a shot. Martin's hire was critiqued by a number of media, including ESPN.com, because of the perception that he got the job only to keep the talented team together, as well as maintain the commitment of incoming stud freshman Michael Beasley. Martin hadn't been a Division I head coach. He had been an assistant to Ron Everhart at Northeastern, Bob Huggins at Cincinnati, Andy Kennedy at Cincinnati and Huggins, again, last season at Kansas State.
When Huggins abruptly left to go home to West Virginia, Martin was elevated to the head coaching position. He kept assistant Dalonte Hill, and that helped dismiss the possibility of a departure from Beasley or returning forward Bill Walker.
"I understand that," Martin said of the perception about him. "The best thing is that we've got a locker room full of guys that want to win. It's a tight-knit group, and we had a couple of bumps in the road against teams that were better than us. But we learned how to play with each other and now we're starting to feel pretty good."
Martin said he has coached basketball for 22 years. He said Huggins, Everhart and Kennedy prepared him to be a head coach. He said they reassured him that he was prepared to become a head coach.
Martin said he didn't need a win over Kansas to give him credibility or confidence.
"I had faith in who I am," Martin said. "I've worked my tail off. I have unbelievable assistants. I've got tremendous structure. We're committed to going in the right direction."
Martin made sure to point out that the Wildcats don't have a bad loss on their résumé. Kansas State lost to George Mason by 10 points on a neutral court in November, by three in overtime to Oregon at home in late November, by nine to Notre Dame in the Jimmy V Classic in December and by 26 at Xavier on Dec. 31.
"We lost to four teams that will be in the NCAA Tournament," Martin said. "We're a young team that has seven freshmen and nine first-year players."
Kansas State hasn't lost in 2008 and is now the only undefeated team, at 5-0 (15-4 overall), in the Big 12. Kansas State has two road wins in the Big 12, at Oklahoma and at Colorado and two monster home wins over Texas A&M and now Kansas.
Oh, and by the way, it has a national player of the year candidate in Beasley (25.3 ppg).
"Our guys believed we could beat Kansas, in their hearts they believed it," said Martin, who had to indefinitely suspend junior forward Andre Gilbert for a violation of team rules before Wednesday's game and lost senior forward David Hoskins earlier this month to a knee injury for the rest of the season.
"For our guys to go out and do it gives us more hope and confidence," Martin said.
Martin said it's too early to say the Wildcats have the type of wins that make them NCAA Tournament-worthy … yet.
"It's too early, there's still 11 conference games," said Martin, who added that Walker has called the conference season a 16-round heavy weight fight. "Yeah, that résumé won't look good unless we go out and beat Missouri on Saturday. We're 5-0, we're in first place and our kids have earned that. We beat Oklahoma at Oklahoma. We came home and beat Texas A&M and we beat Kansas. We beat Iowa State; our guys earned it we didn't get any freebies.
"With that we've had only five games in the league, but we have the confidence to compete at a high level. If we're good enough once we get into March, then we'll go play and give ourselves a chance."
Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.
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