An interview with Darko

 If you haven't noticed yet we are pretty big basketball fans, and that's a topic we will be touching on pretty regularly around here. Being such basketball fanatics we naturally follow our local college program pretty closely, local being Lubbock, Texas and Texas Tech University. Everyone is aware that in West Texas football is God and here is definitely no exception. This season for Tech bball started out with a bang, going 12-2 with huge wins over UTEP and an overtime thriller at then No. 10 Washington. With such a great start to the season there was defiantly a buzz in the air here in Lubbock. Tech was ranked in the top 25 and every where you went people were excited about the program and the season to come. Around this time Brad and I got a chance to attend a home game against another pac-10 foe Stanford, we got to United Spirit Arena a little bit late that night(work stuff...I don't want to talk about it)the only seats we could find left together were about 12 rows from the top of the arena, the place was packed, and everyone there was pumped it was like that same buzz around town times 100, it was a great atmosphere. Tech played great, fed off the home crowd and beat Stanford handily. Fast forward, the next game we had a chance to get to was the second to last home game against No. 6 ranked Kansas State. At this point in the season we had dropped some games, it's tough not to in such a stacked big XII(just ask previously No. 1 ranked Texas), but the much more disappointing thing about the whole situation was what we noticed when we found our seats(which were fantastic by the way). First a bit of background on this particular game A.second to last home game of the season so if you were going to come support your home town boys that would have been the time to do so B.we were playing No. 6 ranked K-State with arguably the best back court in the country in Pullen and Clemente as a bball fan it's exciting to go see those kinds of players C.tickets were a freggin dollar...a $1 that's eight cents cheaper than a double cheese burger. OK back to the story, so we get there about 15 minutes until tip, sit down the first thing we notice is how many open seats there are, not just second deck but everywhere. There was literally no one sitting in the upper level and there were groups of open seats sprinkled all over the lower portion of the USA. Frankly it was embarrassing, at the time we weren't completely out of tourny talk maybe hanging on by the skin of our teeth but not totally out of it, and a win over an extremely tough K-State team would've definitely put us right back in the discussion. The weather leading up to this game was a little rough with a bit of snow, it was pretty cold but this is no excuse. Four days after the Tech-K State game Brad and I watched the Syracuse Villanova game at the Carrier Dome on ESPN. This game fell during one the worst snow storms to hit the East coast in recent years, did that stop the Cuse faithful from showing up in droves, NO. The students made snow caves to camp out for tickets, the place was sold out,there were people sitting in the opposite end zone from were the court was they literally couldn't see anything, but they wanted to be there for their team. I realize comparing the Texas Tech basketball program to Syracuse is a little ridiculous, but honestly whose fault is that. What kind of message are we sending our current and future student athletes with our waning support? Fans aren't the ones who show up when your winning, those are just onlookers,fans are going to show up regardless of record regardless of whose running out on that floor. Here in Lubbock we've decided that we want to have/watch a good basketball program, maybe we need to decide to do our part to help and decide to be fans.
        Now that I've got that off my chest, we recently had the opportunity to ask a few questions to Brad's friend starting PF for the Red Raiders The Super Serbian Darko Cohadarevic...leads the break better than any 6'9 guy out there. Enjoy.
 
 
 
      B&B-Do you think equal emphasis is put on bball and football from the staff at Tech and administration?
      Darko-Of course not! football here is double more emphasized than basketball. And this is not just by staff and admin, but by fans as well. Football stadium will be full regardless of football team having great success or not. On the other hand (you could see it this year) basketball arena will be full only if we never lose a single game..or if we play Texas. Example of the real fans are Nebraska fans.....they are even worse than us...yet, their arena is packed every single game.
 
  
   B&B-In your opinion what would it take to kick Tech bball up to the next level?
   Darko- I am not really comfortable to speak about this, but I believe that  it takes years to rebuild such a major program like TT is. Maybe emphasis on recruiting would add a little speed to that rebuilding process. Another important factor is the strength of the BIGXII conference. It is one of the best conferences in America, and it is really hard to be good in such a good league.

 
     B&B-As someone who went through the recruiting process how could the university do a better job of presenting the school and Lubbock as a whole?
     Darko-They did a good job with me. Even though I had some other major offers, I had no doubt in my mind where I wanted to go. I believe that with coach Pat now being a head coach, this program will get better and better each year. He is a players coach. He is a modern example of a great college basketball coach. The thing with coach Bob Knight was that not everybody wanted to play for coach like that. It required players to have a patience, understanding, willingness to take a huge amount of criticism, zero amount of stubbornness, etc., and I am not sure that many kids these days have all these characteristics.

 
    B&B-Do you think that bigger recruits would be more inclined to come to a less attractive locale like Lubbock if we ran maybe a different style offense less motion more dribble drive?
    Darko-No. Motion offense is a really good offense. It is a little bit guard oriented, but that is, in my opinion, not even close to being a factor in recruiting. Good recruiting is influenced by some other things. If one wants to play for a particular school, city, weather, and other environmental factors like that will not be the major factors influencing one's decision about choosing the school. If Tech was in the middle of dessert or on the oil platform in the middle of the ocean, I would still come to play for Tech.
 
  
    B&B-As a player how have you grown at Tech what do you feel helped you be successful coaching, facilities, playing time, self practice, etc.?
    Darko-All these were factors in my personal growth as a player and as an individual. It is obvious that I have grown as a player here. Great coaching staff is the first and major reason for that. Of course Facilities are great at Tech. When it comes to playing time being low, that should not be anybody's excuse for not getting better. My junior year I played 10 min. on average, and I still got better every day. If one wants to be better than others, he or she must do extra work every day. If one works like everybody else, he or she will only be good as everybody else. Yes but what about talent? Talent is a factor, but if someone more talented does not work extra, he or she will remain stagnant while others that are less talented will catch up by putting extra work in every day.
 
  
   B&B-Who has been the toughest guard for you at the college level?
   Darko-Clemente from K- State
 
 
   B&B-Finally, who is your final 4 and who do you have winning it?
   Darko-Kansas, Kentucky, Syracuse, and Villanova....Kansas all the way