A couple years ago, a friend got kicked out of a Nebraska basketball game by Eddie Sutton. He popped a balloon while an Oklahoma State player shot a free throw. Sutton walked down the bench, pointed him out and the campus cops swarmed. This doesn't say anything in particular about Sutton, but he was always one of those coaches who students at Nebraska games turned out to see -- you could also put Roy Williams, Bobby Knight and to a lesser extent, Kelvin Sampson fit into that category. When you had six years of Barry Collier-coached teams, you hoped for upsets and showed up to watch the teams who rolled through town.
So, with that in mind, I got interested when Sutton randomly took over at University of San Francisco. I'm not sure how quiet the story has been around the country, but the former coach was pushed out and basically told that he could take a leave of absence or be fired. It really hasn't been too big of a deal around San Francisco -- USF isn't good and there's other stuff going on than just watching bad basketball. Even so, I wanted to see Sutton coach. So, a friend who works at St. Mary's -- which is ranked in the top 25, by the way -- got us tickets to see USF and St. Mary's. SMC easily won by 25, but I was more interested in the train wreck on the USF bench.
Sutton and two other assistants were doling out instructions at various points in the game. At times he seemed disinterested and his offense didn't seem any more complex than what you might find at a YMCA open gym. I felt bad for the players -- their coach forced out in the beginning of the season in what amounted to a publicity stunt so Sutton could get his 800th win. That's not to take anything away from St. Mary's, who should be playing in March come tournament time. Things went well. I had a great time, even without popping balloons.
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