One. Two. Three. One. Three. One. No, that is not Mike Tysontrying to count to 10. Rather, it is the number of points that theSMU men’s basketball team has lost by in half of its 12losses.
For all those Chicago Cubs fans that consider your team cursed,Mustang fans should be starting to have the same suspicions abouttheir squad.
It truly seems criminal for one team to just about always end upon the losing end of critically close games.
Maybe we are all blind to the real reason behind the losing.Perhaps it is time for coach Mike Dement’s effectiveness tobe evaluated.
Whenever teams start losing, it’s almost as natural asbreathing for the fans to start pointing fingers for who is toblame. In this situation, the Mustangs’ inconsistent play canbe blamed solely on coach Dement.
In Mike Dement’s coaching tenure at SMU, he has compiledan unremarkable 137-117 record.
For those of you scoring at home, that is a .539 winningpercentage — in effect, nothing to write home about.
Despite being in one of the weakest conferences in the country,SMU finds itself at the bottom of the barrel in numerousstatistics.
Of the 10 schools in the Western Athletic Conference, SMU rankseighth in both team scoring and in team assists per game. When itcomes to what really matters, the actually scoring of baskets, SMUsits in last place with a .422 field goal percentage.
Above all, coach Dement seems complacent, as marked by acontinual decline in wins season after season.
Since their brilliant 21-9 record in the 1999-2000 season, SMUwon 18 games in 2000-2001 and only 15 games in 2001-2002.
It should also be noted that those teams’ roster, whichincluded Jeryl Sasser, Damon Hancock, Quinton Ross and WillieDavis, had enough talent to rival many of the nation’s topteams.
This season, SMU shocked its fans with wins over Texas Tech anda then nationally ranked Purdue team.
Obviously there is talent within the program, but the team stillcontinuous to struggle.
The often-underachieving Mustang squad seems to be lackingproper leadership from the coaching staff.
The attitude to win is gone, and the fire and love for the gameof basketball seems to have faded along with it.
