Glory Days Are Still Ahead for Brandenburg at SDSU

San Diego State, in its attempt at redefining its basketball program, might also be accused of tampering with the dictionary.

A special basketball brochure calls for a, roll the drums . . . “Return to Glory!”

This was a workable concept for the football program, because there had been more than a decade of glory under Don Coryell.

It doesn’t work for basketball. There have been a few rather nice years, but never an era of glory.

There is no particular glory in going 23-8 one year, which the Aztecs did in 1984-85, and then 10-19 the next, which the Aztecs did in 1985-86.

Jim Brandenburg, who has been hired to redefine and reshape the basketball program, knows this. His job is to create tradition where none has existed, rather than stir a dormant giant.

“You can’t be up and down, up and down,” he said Tuesday. “You have to put a quality product on the court consistently. You have to get off the roller coaster and get better and better with solid, steady improvement. You can’t get people excited and then disappoint them. You can’t be a tease.”

Brandenburg is 20 games into his first season at SDSU. The record, 9-11, is modest by most standards, but remarkable in light of recent history hereabouts.

The Aztecs, to be sure, were 5-25 last year, and little has happened since to suggest that there was any opportunity for improvement. On the contrary, two returning starters were suspended before the season even began.

And to think that Brandenburg had come to SDSU from Wyoming, which returned its top nine players from a team that reached the NCAA Western Regional semifinals. He had left a great team for a great place, and suddenly it was looking as if he would hardly have a team to coach.

Jim Brandenburg had to be thinking that maybe a winter’s worth of blizzards might have been quite comfortable after all.

If what happened before the season started was ominous, imagine his trepidation had he known exactly how strong the Western Athletic Conference was going to be. He knew Wyoming would be tough, but who could have known that Brigham Young would go into February unbeaten and that both New Mexico and Texas El Paso would be top 20 teams?

By now, he figured to be looking for a blizzard . . . or a bridge.

“The Western Athletic Conference is sort of a double-edged sword,” Brandenburg said. “It’s good because of the interest and attention it has attracted, bringing a number of national-level teams to San Diego. But the other edge is that this is a sword we can fall on. We’re trying to move vertically when the teams are the strongest and best-balanced in the history of the league.”

However, things are not going that badly for the Aztecs. They are not exactly tearing the WAC apart, but what’s significant is that they are not being torn apart. They are making inroads on respectability, such as a five-point win over New Mexico and a one-point loss to Wyoming.

A season like this, in fact, is all Brandenburg asked for or expected. He knows things such as miracles and overnight sensations are produced by unseen months and years of labor.

“If you’re going to build a program on a solid foundation,” he said, “you need: one, solid recruiting; two, coaching and development, and three, large participating crowds. Those are the three basics.”

Under “coaching and development” come three more Brandenburg Bylaws . . . with addendums:

“We must base our program on solid defense, rebounding and offensive execution, in that order,” he said. “We have to play with a team approach. The players have to be mentally tough and physically courageous. None of these things happen if you don’t demand them.”

Brandenburg’s “success curve” at Wyoming took the Cowboys from 12-15 the year before he arrived to 15-12, 18-10, 24-6 and 23-7. Consistency manifested itself with nine straight winning seasons at Wyoming, which followed winning records for his two years at Montana.

The Aztecs may, in truth, saddle Brandenburg with his first losing season as a collegiate head coach, but this program is coming from a much deeper hole than the one he inherited in Wyoming.

And Brandenburg appreciates all the nice little things that happen along the road up the hill.

Take, for example, a road the Aztecs just traveled.

The villainous schedule maker sent them to Hawaii for a game on Feb. 1, and they won, 59-58. And then the schedule sent them to Miami, which must have seemed like going to the other side of the world, for a game on Feb. 6, and they won that one too, 56-49.

For those keeping score of the mileage plus, that represented 10,490 air miles for two college basketball games.

Did it represent any kind of a turning point to win those two games?

“Not really a turning point,” Brandenburg said. “More of a benchmark for the team and the program.”

It represented what these players could do under rather adverse circumstances. It showed them what they could accomplish in spite of the fact that they figured to be physically and mentally drained. They played tough. They won.

And now they face new challenges. This week’s road goes to New Mexico and UTEP, where the best of teams have the worst of experiences. These are not places where the Aztecs are likely to win, but no one said the road to glory was easy . . . especially this early in the journey.