With Coach Dug in, Program Still in the Hole : Brandenburg Firm in Resolve to Win at San Diego State

Coach Jim Brandenburg worries.

About the San Diego State offense. About the SDSU defense. About shoes. About hands and feet, and where they are when his players are shooting.

“He’s a perfectionist,” said Bart Brandenburg, a redshirt freshman on this year’s basketball team and Jim’s son. “When we’re doing my shot, instead of having my left hand an inch in front (on the ball), he wants it an inch back. What’s an inch? It doesn’t look any different, but he can tell the little things.

“And feet position. If they are half-a-degree off, he notices it right away.

“It’s so frustrating.”

And if you’re hot?

“You could sit in the gym and make 20 jumpers in a row, and he will say, ‘No, that’s not right.’ You could hit nothing but net, and he will say, ‘No, that’s not right.’

“But if you do it his way, you will be consistent. That’s what he wants. Consistency. That’s why he does the things he does.”

Brandenburg has had plenty to worry about since leaving Wyoming and taking the SDSU job on March 25, 1987.

He left a Cowboys program he built to NCAA tournament stature. The year before he left, he had guided Wyoming to the National Invitation Tournament finals. His last year, his team shocked UCLA to be in the NCAA Sweet 16.

And the Cowboys led Nevada Las Vegas at halftime in that round before finally losing.

He had never had a losing season as a head coach. And then, after 11 years of winning--two at Montana and nine at Wyoming--he landed in an old house that would serve as his office. It was across the street from SDSU’s Peterson Gym, an abysmal practice facility shared by SDSU’s indoor athletic teams.

He since has had four losing seasons. When his fifth season opens tonight against the University of San Diego, the .500 mark seems as intimidating as ever for SDSU.

But there is one thing about which Brandenburg does not worry.

His job.

“I really don’t,” Brandenburg said. “The administration has been very supportive. (Athletic Director) Fred Miller and (SDSU President) Dr. (Tom) Day have been very supportive. I do not feel pressure.

“The only pressure I feel is self-imposed pressure for us to be as good as we can possibly be. I couldn’t ask for any more solid, positive support than I’ve gotten.”

Miller, who last spring extended Brandenburg’s contract by a year through the 1993-94 season, said there is no heat on Brandenburg.

“The only pressure he is under here is self-imposed,” Miller said. “Brandy feels his own pressure because he is his own best critic. But season tickets are up. I look at our scheduling, and it’s not an easy nonconference schedule and it’s difficult on the road in the WAC.

“What do they say? You’ll have more satisfaction if the struggle is difficult? I honestly see a light out there. Just give him what he needs . . . a facility.”

Brandenburg frets.

The facility, a state-of-the-art, on-campus arena, was supposed to be finished this season. The WAC postseason tournament was tentatively scheduled to be played there in March.

But the WAC tournament will be at Colorado State. In San Diego, thanks to a lawsuit filed by area homeowners, ground for the arena hasn’t been broken. SDSU and its lawyers have jumped through several legal hoops, won a couple of hearings and hope to break ground this winter. Now, it’s still up to a judge.

Because of that, Miller is not sure Brandenburg has been given a fair chance.

“I think the university really has an obligation to give a highly successful basketball coach the tools to succeed,” Miller said. “He has been shortchanged in that area because of the delay in the facility. I don’t feel real good about that.”

All Brandenburg wants is to run a first-class, winning program. Consistency.

But there is no basketball tradition at SDSU. The NCAA tournament seems a faraway goal. The Aztecs play their games in the San Diego Sports Arena, often in solitude more suited for a church service than college basketball.

He has never lost this much. So he presses forward, head down, teeth clenched, more determined than ever. He has dug in, he says.

“It’s killing him,” Bart Brandenburg said. “I know that. You’ll never see it.

“What’s funny is that, since he’s been here, he’s a lot happier person. In Wyoming, he was a tyrant. If you think he’s a tyrant now, you should have seen him then. He’s more relaxed, but I know it’s killing him, not doing well.”

Brandenburg took over a program in chaos. The year before he came, the Aztecs were 5-25--their worst season in 66 years. He inherited only five players plus one redshirt. None of them was going to make anyone forget Michael Cage.

“When I took the job, I knew it would be a major, major rebuilding job,” Brandenburg said. “I knew I had committed to the long haul. With as few players as were in the program, I knew it was going to take a considerable amount of time to recruit a nucleus and build.”

To make matters worse, two holdover players ran into immediate trouble--Josh Lowery was expelled from school for fighting and Gerald Murray was jailed on drug charges.

“I’m going to tell you, both of them were quality players,” said Boyd Grant, who retired as Colorado State coach after last season. “And one of his biggest problems was that he took the job late and started recruiting late.”

So in Brandenburg’s first recruiting year, he brought in five juniors and a senior. Some think Brandenburg was looking for a quick fix for the team and that he is still paying the price for not establishing a solid recruiting base immediately. But Brandenburg said it was simply more practical than scrambling to recruit 10 freshmen.

“You have all kinds of problems when you’re trying to make these decisions,” he said. “We thought long and hard about these things. Sometimes they work out the way you plan them . . . sometimes they don’t.”

For the most part, things always worked out for Brandenburg. He was an assistant at Montana when Jud Heathcote, current Michigan State coach, arrived there for the 1970-71 season. Heathcote kept Brandenburg on a one-year probationary status and then, when the year was up, hired him for good.

When Heathcote left for Michigan State, Brandenburg replaced him and won the Big Sky Conference title in his second year. At Wyoming, Brandenburg won or shared three WAC titles and was three-time WAC coach of the year.

Among other things, Brandenburg arrived in San Diego with a reputation as a good recruiter. But even that has not been easy.

“I think basketball is kind of a fickle sport when it comes to recruiting. . . . There are a lot of negatives Jim failed to realize would have the effect they did on his recruiting,” Heathcote said, noting that neither the program nor the conference has traditionally been held in high esteem by high school players or coaches.

“And not having a facility on campus always hurts your recruiting,” Heathcote said. “Even though they play in a nice arena, it’s not filled often.”

Academic reforms for athletes instituted by Day two years ago have made recruiting even more difficult. Day is limiting the number of special admits--athletes who do not meet normal university qualifications but are admitted because they have athletic skills--and this has reduced the recruit pool.

“Possibly, in the short term, it might have a negative effect,” Brandenburg said. “But in the long term, I think it will have a positive influence.”

Brandenburg growls.

Before practice. During practice. After practice. On road trips. During games. At referees.

He knows what he wants on the court, and he expects it to be achieved. The extra pass before a shot. Extra effort on defense. Those things rev him up.

He is demanding. He expects hard work and near-perfection.

Several players have not liked this and have left. Some other players have not appreciated his patient offense and have left in search of a run-and-gun outfit.

Through this season, 16 of 38 recruits from the time Brandenburg arrived either didn’t finish their eligibility at SDSU or failed to qualify academically for admission.

James Lewis transferred to Southern Utah State after playing in 22 games last season, saying he never felt liked.

“There are double standards and certain guys ahead in the pecking order,” Lewis said. “And (Brandenburg) was always trying to look for excuses when we lost. The referees, or we traveled this amount of time. It was never just that the other team outplayed us. I just think Coach Brandenburg needs to make a few changes. Until he does, the winning touch will never return.”

Other players have left citing personality differences.

Brandenburg, who refuses to criticize players, says a certain amount of attrition is natural.

“The thing is, when you’re at the point where you’re recruiting a lot of players, you may not get to evaluate as well as you should,” Brandenburg said. “Sometimes you end up with square pegs in round holes.”

Miller concurs.

“That’s fine,” he said. “If you get people who come and go, the ones who stick are the ones you want to hang onto. If you make recruiting mistakes, that’s OK. You make mistakes.

“But we’re not going to have the inmates running the asylum. If it’s a case of, ‘If you don’t play me, I’m going to transfer,’ my reaction is, ‘Goodby.’ ”

Sophomore center Joe McNaull, who figures to be a star player at SDSU during the next three years, said he came to SDSU because of Brandenburg.

Said McNaull: “I knew he had a good past record in working with big people.”

McNaull, 6-feet-10, could have gone to UNLV, Arizona State or Syracuse, among others, He is not sorry he picked SDSU. And he said that Brandenburg has helped his game.

“For such a little guy, he sure knows a lot about the low post,” McNaull said, smiling.

Brandenburg grumps.

That pass shouldn’t have been made. The pregame shoot-around will be at this time and this time only.

Maybe he underestimated the SDSU job.

“Always, when you size up a job, you know it is going to be difficult,” Brandenburg said. “But you’re not impacted with that difficulty until you actually jump into a job and start working.

“It’s kind of like a house renovation. It’s not too difficult to tear this wall out, but then you’ve got to tear more out and soon a minor frustration is a major frustration. But that’s not to be totally unexpected.”

Said Heathcote: “I think Jim was frustrated tremendously the first couple of years. Then it became a dull pain, and the realization set in that this was not going to be an overnight turnaround. Now, I think he feels he is a player or two away.

“I’ve got my fingers crossed. I’m hoping for Jim.”

Indeed, Brandenburg clings to the hope that this year will be better than last and next year will be better yet. He says he likes his current players and thinks a good nucleus will emerge.

“I really feel good--and I mean this--about the direction of the program,” Brandenburg said. “I’m tough-minded. I can hang in there with it. I have a personality that can hang in and persevere. I think that’s what is needed most in this program.”

Bart Brandenburg said his father has mellowed a bit, both with the referees (“His favorite one was taking off his jacket and jumping on it. I haven’t seen that one here.”) and with his team.

After a season-opening exhibition loss in which the Aztecs actually wore black shoes, the white shoes suddenly returned.

“He never would have done this in Wyoming, but the guys wanted black shoes,” Bart Brandenburg said. “He didn’t want the shoes anyway, but (the exhibition loss) was a good excuse.”

So when the players arrived in the locker room at the practice after the loss, Terrence Hamilton looked into his locker and howled.

“He said, ‘Someone stole my black shoes,’ ” Bart Brandenburg recalled. “And Ray Barefield said, ‘Mine, too.’

“I knew what had happened. But I said, ‘Yeah, who took mine?’ Pops said, ‘Maybe if you guys start playing better, they’ll be returned to your lockers.’ ”

As Brandenburg’s fifth season opens at SDSU, the building process continues. There are plenty of things he needs.

For now, he has the shoes.

San Diego State

Under Brandenburg

Year Overall WAC 1987-88 12-17 5-11 1988-89 12-17 4-12 1989-90 13-18 4-12 1990-91 13-16 6-10