Latest / Cocaine Willie / Kansas State Hires Casey Alexander: Genius Move or Big Risk? (S4//E51)

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Kansas State Hires Casey Alexander: Genius Move or Big Risk? (S4//E51) · Cocaine Willie

0:39
What's up everybody? You're listening to yet another
0:42
edition of Cocaine King Willie, the official K state
0:44
representative on the college huddle.
0:46
I'm your commissioner, Bob Trollsby, and I am not joined by
0:50
my Co host today. It's the middle of the work day.
0:52
But we did want to get just kind of a quick pot out there to
0:55
announce that Casey Alexander has officially been announced by
0:59
Kansas State University as the 27th men's basketball coach.
1:05
So a change has has come. Casey Alexander is taking over
1:09
the current head coach down at Belmont, the Belmont Bruins in
1:14
Nashville, TN. So yeah, a new era is beginning.
1:18
Before we get into the episode, do you want to give a quick
1:21
shout out to our sponsors, Auntie Maze Parlor and Heartland
1:25
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and Auntie Maze. If you look at their website,
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but should be a good time down at Auntie Maze and next
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Looking at the home page here, they usually have their cocktail
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So check out the silver spoon. Check out Auntie Maze, 616 N
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2:17
The Tang era is over, the Matt Driscoll era is over.
2:20
We don't have to listen to him cry about being miserable in his
2:24
position as interim head coach ever again.
2:27
We never have to listen to this team or those press conferences
2:31
or any of the bullshit around this program ever again.
2:33
So at least under the the Tang, the Tang or Driscoll Baylor head
2:39
coaching family tree watch. Yeah.
2:43
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4:26
So Casey Alexander, he has been announced as the next head coach
4:30
of K State's men's basketball program.
4:34
A lot of conflicting stuff. Yesterday, it sounded like Jared
4:36
Calhoun had been the leader in the clubhouse for the job of the
4:40
current head coach at Utah State University, leading the Aggie
4:43
program here for the last couple of years, taking over after his
4:47
time at Youngstown State. And by all indications, from
4:51
everything we gathered from local national media, message
4:56
boards, things of that nature, sounded like he was the main,
4:59
the main guy that Jean Taylor in the program We're targeting that
5:02
big money donors had their sights set on.
5:04
But for whatever reason, it sounds like maybe Cincinnati's
5:07
program could be opening up with their loss to Arizona State in
5:11
the Big 12 tournament. Wes Miller maybe parting ways
5:14
with the program after all. Cincinnati Jeff Capel at
5:17
Pittsburgh is another guy who's whose name has been floated
5:20
around as as potentially leaving that program or being part of
5:23
ways with. So sounds like Jared Calhoun had
5:26
taken a little bit too much time.
5:30
You know, we've we've heard Alan Huss's name mention.
5:32
I can speak to my knowledge of the situation from the Creighton
5:35
perspective, which you know people on the message boards
5:39
will tell you tell me tell you that that that's invalid or or
5:43
not worth its weight in in salt or whatever worth its weight in
5:47
gold. But I can tell you from the
5:49
Crane perspective, there was no indication that Alan Hus was
5:51
entertaining this as a possibility.
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I do have sources within that program and I'm, I'm, you know,
5:56
happy to report that Alan Hus, at least from my perspective,
5:59
was never really a candidate from from their perspective.
6:03
Obviously the K State perspective is what's what's
6:06
going to matter here. By every indication from what
6:08
House was telling the Creighton side, there was no no legitimacy
6:12
to to the rumblings there. And from what's got on Bosco's
6:15
boys mentioned this morning in his podcast, I would encourage
6:18
you all to go listen to his podcast from this morning.
6:21
His sources within the K State side of things corroborated that
6:26
he wasn't hearing anything related to Ellen Huss as well.
6:29
So it sounded like after Jared Calhoun, you know, things passed
6:34
by with him, Casey Alexander was the next target.
6:38
So he has been officially announced by K State as the new
6:41
head coach. I believe they put a tweet out
6:44
related to that and he's he's official as of let's see what
6:48
the time stamp on that tweet is. I can find that on the fly here.
6:53
He was announced about an hour ago as I'm recording this, you
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know, 10:44 AM Central Time as when that was announced.
7:02
So $3.4 million deal over five years.
7:07
Casey Alexander come from the program, from Belmont.
7:09
He was the head coach of the Belmont Bruins for the last few
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years here. When we look specifically, you
7:15
know, four years at the Missouri Valley Conference level, 3 years
7:18
at the Ohio Valley Conference level.
7:20
He took over the Belmont program after, you know what looks like
7:24
6 years at Lips come in two years at Stetson.
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So he's spent quite a bit of time in Nashville, TN Stetson I
7:31
believe that programs in the A Sun conference down in in
7:34
Florida, or at least was when he was there.
7:37
What you're getting with this hire is an established head
7:40
coach. What we had seen with with Coach
7:42
Tang and what we had seen with Jean Taylor when he did have his
7:46
press conference to announce the the firing of Coach Tang, he
7:49
wanted to go after a guy who had a a significant track record, a
7:52
head coaching experience. You're not going to go after a
7:55
long time assistant in this case.
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And and he did exactly that. He went for a guy who's going to
8:01
have that adults in the room presence, which we've all heard
8:06
the Coleman Hawkins projector story.
8:08
Now at this point, that guy, he was a clown car.
8:13
He was a joke of a head coach. I've been saying for three years
8:16
now, it sounded like he was a roll the ball out there head
8:19
coach, at least from my perspective.
8:21
And he was just that he wasn't preparing his team's
8:23
appropriately for matchups against teams like Houston.
8:26
He wasn't preparing his team's appropriately to compete at the
8:29
Big 12 Conference level. And Casey Alexander, you know,
8:33
he doesn't have Power 5 experience at this point as a
8:36
head coach, but this is a guy who's been a leader in the
8:39
clubhouse for a long time at A at a head coaching role at the,
8:44
you know, at least at the at the Division One level.
8:47
And Belmont is notorious for having kind of a prolific
8:50
offense. He took over that Belmont
8:53
program. You know, he was an assistant
8:55
under the guy that that was a long time head coach at Belmont
9:00
and had taken them through multiple iterations of, you
9:02
know, D2D1, whatever, multiple different conferences.
9:06
Casey Alexander himself takes Belmont from the Ohio Valley
9:11
Conference, elevates him to the Missouri Valley Conference
9:13
level, which that's not a huge step up in competition if we're
9:16
being realistic with ourselves. But at the same time, you know,
9:20
he had taken them to the NCAA Division One tournament that got
9:24
cancelled in the 2019-2020 season, finished first in the
9:28
conference at the Ohio Valley level, second in the conference
9:32
his final year there. So you're finishing top one, top
9:34
two at a low major program takes them up to the Missouri Valley
9:39
Conference, which again, let's be realistic here.
9:42
This isn't the Missouri Valley Conference of 2005 or 2006 when
9:45
you got Wichita State and Creighton in Southern Illinois,
9:49
Missouri State, they have a lot of really good teams.
9:52
Northern Iowa you can even point to, you know, the Holly Farouk
9:55
Menashe 2009, 2010 season. But it's not the Missouri Valley
10:00
of 20 years ago. Certainly it's still a decent
10:03
conference though, when you look at the the teams that that
10:05
compose it. But it's a very different makeup
10:07
from what we saw 20 years ago, even even 10 years ago with
10:11
Loyola of Chicago making that jump after Creighton left for
10:14
the Big East in Wichita State leading for the American.
10:17
So it's a very different conference now.
10:19
But they they were strong every year.
10:21
The Missouri Valley never finished lower than 4th.
10:24
They finished first in the league this year.
10:27
They miss out on the NCAA tournament because they're an
10:29
auto big. They're an auto bid, one bid
10:31
league at this point and they lost in that conference
10:35
tournament. When you look at some of the
10:37
maybe glaring things on his resume or things that I'm not as
10:41
excited about, it's it's just that it's that he hasn't made
10:45
the NCAA tournament since his time at Lipscomb.
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He has lost maybe inexplicable or or kind of strange games in
10:54
these conference tournaments when they're the clear favorite
10:56
or at least a top four seed going into those conference
10:59
tournaments in Arch Madness or whatever they call the Ohio
11:02
Valley Conference Tournament. So it is confusing right when
11:05
you look at some of the resume in the track record here.
11:07
But this has been the the line all the other K state media or
11:12
or fancast have said is is he does raise the floor of the
11:15
program. I think, you know, he's never
11:18
not had a 20 win season going back for the last 10 seasons.
11:23
And I think that's a positive thing to take away from this
11:25
hire of this is a guy who's had a consistent, he has a system.
11:29
We didn't see that with previous coaching staff.
11:31
He has an offensive identity. He has an offensive system that
11:34
he's established. And I think with the resources
11:38
at a Power 5 at a Big 12 conference level, we, we
11:42
certainly have a lot of money. When you look at the NIL and the
11:45
resources that have been allocated to K State over the
11:48
course of the last four to five years in the, in the, the Jerome
11:52
Tang era, you know, there's a lot of of cash in at the
11:56
disposal of whoever's going to take over.
11:58
This program may not be quite at the level of coach Tang where
12:02
your top five or top 20 NIL program or Rev share program.
12:07
When you look at kind of the different, the different ways
12:09
that they distribute the funds now.
12:10
But he's certainly going to have more funds at his disposal than
12:14
he had at Belmont. And he did a pretty damn good
12:16
job at Belmont over the last, you know, seven years that that
12:20
he was a head coach there at that program.
12:22
So I'm optimistic. I'm not over the moon about the
12:26
hire. You know, it's not a higher that
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when you look at it on paper, it's oh, this is a home run
12:31
hire. But that said, we've all got to
12:35
get on board with this guy, right?
12:36
We've we've all got to show some love and support to the program
12:39
because of what they've been through over the course of the
12:41
last few months. Realistically over the last two
12:44
to three years when we look at it, just what the shit that we
12:49
got put through with the Coach Tank program.
12:53
I certainly will show support. You know, when they make the
12:55
trip to Colorado, I would love to get back for a home game.
12:58
You know, obviously not living in the Manhattan area or the
13:01
Kansas area at this point. I, I want to get out and, and
13:04
support Casey Alexander however I can at this point.
13:07
But again, similar to some of our thoughts with with Colin
13:10
Klein when he took over the football program, I want to be
13:13
cautiously optimistic here. You know, it's not going to be a
13:16
situation where this could be an overnight turn around.
13:19
He may have a completely barren slate, a barren cupboard to work
13:24
with when it comes to roster and personnel within the program.
13:27
So we're going to have to see how he can how he can build this
13:30
thing from scratch and and Coach Tang, to his credit, did a
13:34
pretty good job in that first year.
13:36
And then every year after that there was a shit show.
13:38
There was there were players dismissed every season we had
13:42
some player not finish out the season with the with the roster
13:46
that we started with. I don't expect that to be the
13:49
case with Casey Alexander. He is an adult.
13:51
He has managed multiple programs at this point at the head
13:54
coaching level. He knows what he's doing.
13:56
He knows his shit. He knows how to manage a roster.
13:58
He knows how to manage the coaching staff around him.
14:01
And I'm, I'm confident that all the off the court bullshit that
14:04
we've had to deal with over the last four years is not going to
14:07
be something we're going to have to deal with.
14:09
And I think that alone gives you a leg up from where things were
14:12
over the last four years. So I feel confident in, in at
14:15
least the direction the program can can.
14:17
Now we can wipe our hands clean. We do not have to talk about
14:21
Coach Tang ever again. Coach Driscoll, we don't have to
14:24
worry about that shit ever again.
14:25
So I'm, I'm confident in the direction the program is heading
14:29
as a result of this. You know, I feel I feel good
14:32
about at least that the offensive side of things and,
14:34
and hopefully with the resources that he has at his disposal now
14:38
with the salary pool in the coaching staff that he can go
14:41
out and target some, some higher level assistance.
14:44
You can go out and get some guys maybe have Big 12 experience or
14:47
have experience at the power 5 level as assistance or as former
14:51
head coaches. I, you know, we've seen that
14:53
happen where you could make Jeff Cables going to be on the market
14:58
maybe after you go after a guy like I'm not suggesting that,
15:01
but specifically, but you go after a guy who, you know, maybe
15:06
it didn't work out for him as a head coach, but he has a
15:09
specialty in defense or has a specialty with him recruiting in
15:13
the Big 12 in, in the footprint that the Big 12 exists in today.
15:17
You know, Casey Alexander, he's he's also had to go out and
15:20
recruit high school kids, which, you know, that has been a shit
15:24
show as well over the last four years.
15:26
You know, we've only really gotten David Castillo, a couple
15:29
of other guys, three guys that you brought in one year, Day,
15:32
Day, Ames, Buddy Rich, none of those guys panned out for you.
15:37
RJ Jones. So I'm excited to see where
15:39
things are going to head. It's going to be a much more
15:42
professionally run program. We're going to see this thing,
15:46
you know, really evolve from where it was in the clown car in
15:49
the shit show that it was. I don't think I can say shit
15:52
show anymore on this podcast because it's I, I feel like I've
15:55
driven my point home on it. But yeah, I I'm cautiously
15:58
optimistic. I'm going to support him
16:01
whatever ways I can. I'm going to support this
16:03
program. And the best part is he's bald.
16:07
He's bald guy. So he's representing the the
16:09
fireball mats, the Bob Trollsby's that you know, the
16:12
me, that the chef, when he decides to shave his head every
16:15
so often, he represents the K State sexy ballclub.
16:18
So I'm on board with this hire. You know, it's not the home run
16:22
that I was hoping for with a Jared Calhoun, but that's OK.
16:25
You're not always going to get that.
16:27
And it's going to give a guy who's hungry he wants to win.
16:31
He has a proven track record of success.
16:33
When you look at what he's done at Belmont, he has a better
16:36
track record of success in his time at Belmont from a win
16:40
percentage standpoint. And the Josh Hertz is of the
16:43
world as well. So you know, 623 win percentage
16:47
for Josh Hertz at Indiana, seven O 8 win percentage for him at
16:52
Saint Louis. So you know, realistically, he's
16:54
got a more consistent track record of success and winning at
16:57
a high level. You know, I guess at the at the
17:00
winning at a high level within his conference, which is a low
17:03
major or mid major at this point.
17:05
We'll see how that translates to the Big 12.
17:07
We've seen it work for some coaches.
17:09
We've seen it not work for others.
17:11
You know, I'm hoping that this can be a success story and, and
17:14
that, you know, this can be a home run.
17:17
When we look back on this hire here in the next, you know, he's
17:20
got a five year contract if things work out, hopefully he's
17:23
here for at least five years and then we can, we can give him a,
17:27
give him an extension. Hopefully not after one year
17:30
like we saw with the most recent administration.
17:32
But you know, I'm excited. We'll we'll see how this thing
17:34
pans out. We've got 2 new head coaches, so
17:37
there's a lot of, there's a lot of resetting happening across
17:41
men's basketball and football, which we all know are the are
17:44
the big drivers of, of revenue 4K state when you look at the
17:48
athletics program. So we're going to see how this
17:50
thing, how this thing pans out and and Casey Alexander,
17:54
officially the K State men's head basketball coach, the 27th
17:59
all time at K State and, and I wish him the best and and hope
18:03
for the best for him. And and we'll see how recruiting
18:06
starts to starts to unwind here as we enter the the transfer
18:10
portal, which is going to open here in the next couple of
18:13
weeks. So for for chef and for fireball
18:17
Matt, who can't make it today. Just a quick one for you here
18:20
for Auntie Maze Parlor and Heartland Beef Connection as
18:23
well. You know, we, we wish you all
18:25
the best. We hope you all have a great
18:26
weekend. That's going to do it for us
18:28
here today. Yeah.
18:30
Check out Auntie maze.com. You'll see a full list of their
18:33
upcoming events, their cocktail of the week, Their menu is all
18:36
available right there on their website. heartlandbeef.net is
18:40
where you can find our friends over at Heartland Beef
18:41
Connection. But yeah, that's going to do it
18:44
for us today. We, you know, we love you guys.
18:48
I'm not going to do Scott's sign up on Bosco's boys, but we are
18:52
all coke and no joke, Wildcat country.
18:55
Let's ride Casey Alexander.