Chasing the Razorback Dream (DDS:CB)

[Izulde]

IRL, as some of you may know, I've accepted a teaching assistantship at the University of Arkansas and will be getting my masters degree there starting this fall. As a result, the Razorbacks are now my #1 NCAA D-1 team. In this dynasty, I'll start off at the bottom and try to work my way up to the head coaching job at Arkansas. I'll also create a DDS:PB thread in order to profile both the Razorbacks players and the players from whatever schools I'm coaching at that make it to the NBA.

The dynasty will start in 2007 with default prestiges, conferences, etc, left on. The one rule change I'm going to make is that underclassmen will not be allowed to declare for the draft. In my opinion, allowing players to graduate early has taken away a vital part of the college game. Now, if it was just juniors and seniors who could apply for the draft (like in football), I'd be okay with that, but freshmen, sophomores? No way. If the NBA teams in this universe want a young kid, they're going to have to go international..

"You have a gift, a real gift for coaching."

Hans Fritz. The Old Man. The one who taught me most of what I know about the game of basketball.

A lot of guys in the business, they played basketball in high school, college too, in a lot of cases.

Not me. I was an excellent stealer, a pretty good rebounder and a decent passer, but for all my defensive tenacity and point guard skills, I never made the team after Pee-Wee. My high school team's coaching staff was all about the offense, the glitzy skills... and I shot about as well as Shaq at the free throw line, only I was that bad everywhere.

So I became a student of the game and Hans was my teacher. He coached a local traveling team and took me on as an assistant the day after I got cut my freshman year in high school and I became so good under his tutelage, the rec league teams I coached as a volunteer as an undergrad did exceptionally well.

That experience in the youth leagues and the contacts I developed through Hans, more than anything else, is what landed me an assistant job at the flagship university in the state. I started at the very bottom again of course, but now, it's six years later and I have my first top job.

Wofford doesn't strike anybody as an athletic powerhouse, although their football team is pretty good for a 1-AA program. Their basketball team stinks though, which is why I guess I'm here. They haven't been in Division I for very long, only since about 1995-96, I think and the Terriers have never made the NCAA tournament. For that matter, I don't believe they've ever made the NIT.

Maybe I'm the one that can bring them to postseason success. In any case, it's a start in the long trek to the school of my dreams: The University of Arkansas Razorbacks.