The Living Room Times

Kyle Whelliston, the Jack Kerouac of the mid-majors, the talented, cerebral, and at times ornery sportswriting iconoclast/bubblefighter/philosopher whose Mid-Majority is the inspiration for my own humble effort at college basketball citizen-journalism, wrote earlier this week about the state of being in transit:

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Denver head coach Joe Scott knows a little bit about Northern Iowa. And he’s not afraid to tell you that he’d like to follow in their footsteps.

Last season, Scott’s Pioneers opened their season by hosting the Panthers. I was at that game, and I watched DU lose a close contest, 71-65. The Pioneers wouldn’t lose again at Magness Arena all season, rattling off a 15-winning home winning streak that’s now tied for eighth-longest in the nation (as each and every DU basketball press release will remind you). The Panthers, meanwhile, went on to a 28-4 regular season, a double-championship in the Missouri Valley Conference, and, of course, an epic win over Kansas that sent UNI to the Sweet Sixteen and taught everyone in America the name Farokhmanesh.

All of which is background to this: in the aftermath of Northern Iowa’s shocker over Kansas, local NBC affiliate KUSA invited Scott to appear on “9News Overtime” and give his thoughts on March Madness. And mixed in with his analysis of the tourney, Scott volunteered that UNI’s level of success is where he’d like DU to eventually be. Following in the Panthers’ footsteps, he said, is the Pioneers’ ultimate goal. (I’m paraphrasing, as I can’t find the video clip right now. I’ll post the link if and when I can locate it.)

That’s some heady talk for the leader of a team that went 19-13 last year — 15-1 at home, 2-1 on neutral floors, but 2-11 on the road — with a 10-8 regular-season record in the 20th-ranked conference (out of 33) in the country. Granted, those numbers represent significant and steady improvement throughout Scott’s tenure (another fact that DU’s press releases never fail to mention). The year before Scott arrived, the Pioneers were 4-25, and 3-15 in Sun Belt play. His first year: 11-19 and 7-11. His second year, when they had the youngest team in America: 15-16, 9-9, and a merciful end to their nation’s-worst 43-game road losing streak. And then last year, 19-13 and 10-8. Certainly, the program seems to be headed in the right direction.

But: Northern Iowa? Or, as WAC commissioner Karl Benson put it in yesterday’s teleconference announcing that his league is adding Denver to the fold in 2012, “the next Gonzaga”?

Scott doesn’t shy away from such talk. “I didn’t talk this way in year 1, I didn’t talk this way in year 2, I didn’t talk this way in year 3,” Scott told me on this season’s first day of official practice, October 15, when I asked about his lofty expectations-setting. “What time do you try to start to develop the program in that direction? So I’ve just decided that it’s time to do that.”

Primarily, at least, “that” means not so much making long-term comparisons to programs like Northern Iowa and Gonzaga, but articulating the team’s overarching short-term goal for the 2010-11 season: winning a conference championship. At every press conference, speech and one-on-one interview, Scott says that’s the goal: a Sun Belt Conference championship banner hanging in Magness Arena.

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