Henry the First

Disciplinarian or just plain mean?

Innovator or just plain nuts?

A good basketball coach or just a mediocre one working at a place where they’re too busy buckling chin straps to notice?

The annual discussion of Henry Bibby has begun again, its urgency increased by a new building, its heat turned up with old beefs.

At first glance, not much has changed, Bibby’s USC team being 8-7, his countenance surly, his players pouting, his fans disappearing.

Yet no longer can he shine in the mottled reflection of Steve Lavin. No longer is he basking in the glow of the 2001 Elite Eight appearance.

His shroud is shrinking, his football-fevered constituents are sighing, his new gym is looming, and the only thing solid is his resume.

You want to fire him?

You’d be firing a guy who led a football school into the NCAA tournament two of the last three years, including advancing to the regional finals three seasons ago.

You’d be firing a guy who has won two out of the last three games against UCLA, a guy who has knocked Stanford out of the Pac-10 tournament in each of the last two seasons, a guy who just blitzed Lute Olson.

“My record speaks for itself,” Bibby says. “I appreciate the chance I was given here, and I’ve tried to make the most of it.”

But his actions also speak, often louder.

You’d be firing a guy who admittedly will lose a game to teach a lesson, a guy who can harass a player into inertia or run him into ineffectiveness.

You’d be firing a guy who may have cost his team their last two tournament games by benching star players at halftime because he didn’t think they were working hard enough.

You want to fire him?

Believe it or not, some of the former players would boo you.

“He was a good coach for me, I wish I would have listened to him earlier,” said David Bluthenthal, a forward on that Elite Eight team who is playing in Israel. “At times, his discipline was extreme, but you later find out, that’s life.”

Yet some of those former players’ fathers would cheer.

“Bibby is a control freak, he’s got a chip on his shoulder, he’s all about Henry,” said Ralph Bluthenthal, a retired sheriff. “Everybody in town tip-toes around saying it, but it’s the truth. It’s not discipline. It’s meanness.”

Such is the depth of the paradox surrounding Bibby,

With his values about education and work ethic, he looks great on paper.

With his unwillingness to simply coach basketball without trying to climb into a player’s head, he sometimes looks lousy on the court.

With a new arena tentatively scheduled to open in a couple of years, the Trojans are faced with a decision.

Is Henry Bibby the man to lead them into a future where basketball joins the other Trojan sports as a national contender?

Or is he a relic who, like the other cardinal-and-gold Sports Arena artifacts, needs to be chucked out before the move?

“This is about something bigger than winning a game,” Bibby said. “This is life. I have to teach them life. I can’t live with myself if I stop doing that.”

This is what we love about Henry Bibby.

This is what we also hate about him.

The paradox that is Bibby was never more clear than in a recent six-day stretch that symbolized his eight-year regime.

On Thursday, full of energy and savvy, in front of a delighted crowd of thousands, the Trojans blitzed seventh-ranked Arizona.

On Tuesday, after they completed the weekend with a desultory loss to Arizona State, four people showed up at Bibby’s weekly news conference.

Four people.

Has there ever been a large, rich school where, less than a month after winning a national football championship, only four media members showed up to report on the basketball team?

Clearly, the invigorating buzz from the Elite Eight season has disappeared.

Clearly, the guy with his hand on the volume has been Bibby.

As quickly as he turned it up, he turned it down.

“He always talks about being a player’s father, well, on my son’s teams, all the starters had fathers,” Ralph Bluthenthal said. “Bibby needed just to sit down, shut up, and coach.”

Stan Granville, father of former point guard Brandon, sees it different.

“I empathize with Ralph, but in our situation, Coach Bibby was a positive factor in Brandon’s development,” said Granville, a local criminal attorney. “He wasn’t the easiest person to get along with all the time, but isn’t that the nature of living?”

But with Bibby, it has sometimes been the nature of losing.

The season after the Trojans’ stunning 2001 Elite Eight success, Bibby began the spring with one of the best teams in the country.

But, despite playing three games in the Pac-10 tournament, he continued working them hard in the few days before the NCAA tournament.

“I’ll admit, that took a lot out of us,” said then-point guard Brandon Granville, now a locally based sports agent who supports Bibby.

By the time they played heavy underdog North Carolina Wilmington in the first round, they were exhausted.

Then, upset that Bluthenthal was not playing tough enough defense, Bibby benched him at halftime with USC trailing by nine points.

This is even though Bluthenthal was one of the team’s top three players. By the time Bluthenthal returned, the Trojans were down by 18 points, and eventually lost in overtime.

Said Ralph Bluthenthal: “Bibby went into the tank that game, pure and simple. He tried to make a point when he should have been trying to win with his best players.”

Said Bibby: “David was playing terrible defense. I had to make a point. That’s why they pay me.”

All the program’s newfound momentum was sapped with that loss, not to mention the careers of seniors Granville, Bluthenthal and Sam Clancy.

Last season, the Trojans were 13-16 in the regular season, but still managed to fight to the finals of the Pac-10 tournament against Oregon.

But once again, Bibby decided to sacrifice a game for a lesson, benching Desmon Farmer after a 19-point first half because he was seen pouting when he wasn’t thrown the ball.

Farmer was distressed enough that he was scoreless in the second half and the Trojans lost by nine.

When Farmer scored 40 points against Arizona last week, Bibby was reminded of that benching.

“Desmon has matured such that, without that night last year, maybe we don’t have tonight,” he said. “That’s how it works.”

Maybe that’s how it could work at Duke or Connecticut, programs that are deep enough to sustain in-game wrist slaps.

But USC is a place where the foundation still requires more victories than life lessons.

Especially now, when a certain energy is required for the new building, when the university is paying certain attention to players who never look happy.

The three guys on the cover of this year’s media guide? Two of the three -- Errick Craven and Farmer -- have already been kept out of the starting lineup at different times for disciplinary reasons.

Twin freshmen Lodrick and Rodrick Stewart are not allowed to talk to the media, unlike everyone else on the team.

A freshman guard who was Kansas City (Mo.) player of the year, Quinton Day, has already transferred closer to home.

Bibby is proud that he no longer throws players out of practice. But it’s not unusual to see one of those players thrown out of a game before it even starts, not even allowed to show up on the bench while serving a suspension.

“I’m adapting,” Bibby said. “But I’m still demanding.”

As much of himself as he does his players?

Is he working hard enough at adjusting and growing with his kids? Is he illustrating the very lessons he is trying to teach?

The same discipline and restraint he requires of his students, can he adopt for himself in his dealings with them?

These questions need to be answered, and soon. One suspects Henry Bibby is not the only guy in the campus with a doghouse.

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Bill Plaschke can be reached at bill.plaschke@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Plaschke go to latimes.com/plaschke.

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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)

Bibby Report

Henry Bibby is in his eighth full season as head coach at USC. A look:

*--* Year Pac-10 Overall 1996* 1-8, 9th 1-8 1997 12-6, 2nd (tie) 17-11 1998 5-13, 8th 9-19 1999 7-11, 7th (tie) 15-13 2000 9-9, 6th 16-14 2001 11-7, 4th (tie) 24-10 2002 12-6, 2nd (tie) 22-10 2003 6-12, 6th (tie) 13-17 2004 3-3, 5th 8-7 Totals 66-75 (.468) 125-109 (.534) *Interim coach

*--*

NCAA AND NIT APPEARANCES

NCAA: (3-3)

* 1997: Lost to Illinois, 90-77, first round (at Charlotte, N.C.)

* 2001: Defeated Oklahoma State, 69-54, first round (at Long Island, N.Y.)

Defeated Boston College, 74-71, second round (at Long Island, N.Y.)

Defeated Kentucky, 80-76, regional semifinal (at Philadelphia)

Lost to Duke, 79-69, regional final (at Philadelphia)

* 2002: Lost to UNC Wilmington, 93-89, first round (at Sacramento)

NIT: (0-1)

* 1999: Lost to Wyoming, 81-77 (at Laramie, Wyo.)