Travis Smith

Online Editor

At the beginning of the season, Idaho State men’s basketball coach Bill Evans adopted a “Drink the Kool-Aid” mantra, where players who were willing to play his style of basketball were given a T-shirt that says, “I drink the Kool-Aid.”

Chris Hansen, who just finished his second year at ISU, said drinking the Kool-Aid means to buy into Evan’s old school coaching philosophy. “Being good teammates, cheering each other on and working hard,” said Hansen. “Just doing what your role is on the team, and not trying to do too much or too little.”

Not everybody was immediately willing to drink Evans’ Kool-Aid when the coach first arrived at ISU in March of 2012, most notably senior guard Andre Hatchett.

After Evans was hired, Hatchett and the coach sat down and Hatchett was ready to tell the coach that he didn’t want to play for him. Hatchett thought Evans was too old school. After all, Hatchett was recruited by former head coach Jim O’Brien. With the coaching change, certain expectations and promises were also changed.

Thankfully for ISU basketball, the coach was able to convince the Arizona native to give him a chance.

Hatchett’s numbers have improved in each of the two years under Evans.

Evans transformed Hatchett into a slashing guard with devastating results for opponents. Hatchett was second on the team in scoring and first in free throw attempts during his senior season and became a tenacious perimeter defender.

Not only did Hatchett drink the Kool-Aid this season, he guzzled it down like a man dying of thirst stranded in the Sahara.

Despite getting his players to drink the Kool-Aid, the season ended in disappointment. The Bengals will miss the Big Sky Tournament for the second year in a row.

After Saturday’s 74-78 loss in Portland, Evans summed up the season in one sentence: “We had a chance to win it and didn’t.”

Last year the Bengals did not have those chances.

While fans aren’t overjoyed at the modest five-game improvement in the win column from the previous year, there is noticeable difference between last year’s squad and this year’s squad. Last year, the Bengals had a point differential of -4.49.  This year, the Bengals point differential ended up positive.

The scoring average went up by 11 percent, while the defensive numbers remained relatively the same.

The Bengals had seven losses by five points or less, and had a chance to advance to the tournament until losing the second-to-last regular season game of the year.

The Bengals played with a depleted roster all year. While Evans won’t use that as an excuse, it’s hard to ignore the ramifications of an unexpectedly abbreviated roster. The Bengals were forced to play with only ten active players. One had to wonder if losing all of those close games could be attributed to fatigue, a result of not having a full roster. The college basketball season was an exhausting 29-game schedule and having a limited roster would be a challenge for any coach.

“I won’t use it as an excuse,” said Evans. “But certainly it would have been better if we would have had all our players.”

The Bengals were handed a huge blow before the season even began. Evans had a potentially great recruiting class and anticipated having Andre Slavik, a 6-foot-9-inch center from Slovakia, 6-foot-7-inch forward Marcus Bradley from San Bernadio Valley College and Ben Wilson, a 6-foot-5-inch guard out of North Platte Community College at his disposal.

The new recruiting class was supposed to solve the team’s rebounding woes and get the Bengals back into the tournament.

With a loaded roster, Evans approached Nmandi Ezenwa, a two-guard he recruited in his first year at ISU, and the two decided that Ezenwa should redshirt this year. The decision was made for academic reasons.

Then disaster struck.

Bradley failed to meet academic requirements and was not enrolled at ISU in time for the season to start. Slavik and Wilson were forced to redshirt due to amateurism issues with the NCAA.

The obvious chain reaction to losing three players would be to activate Ezenwa and force him to play this year. However, Evans is a man of his word, and while the losses that would ensue from not having a full roster would hurt his reputation as a basketball coach, his reputation as a man is far more important to him.

“I had made a promise to [Ezenwa] that he could redshirt, and I wasn’t going to break that promise,” said Evans.  “That was a decision I made before I knew that Andre and Ben were ruled ineligible. I didn’t want to go back on my word,” said Evans. “I could have said ‘[Ezenwa] you’re going to play this year,’ but I thought redshirting was the best decision for [him] academically,” said Evans.

The coach’s refusal to relinquish on his promise to a player shows his true character– character he hopes to instill in his players.

That type of integrity and character is one of the main ingredients in Evans’ Kool-Aid.

Nobody was more appreciative of Evans keeping his word than Ezenwa. “The fact that Evans wasn’t mad and that he understood showed me what kind of man he is,” said Ezena. “He is a man of his word and doesn’t go back on his word, and he cares about us individually as much as he cares about himself.”

“He’s just a great person,” said Ezenwa. “He’s genuine and caring. I’ve never heard any of my teammates talk bad about him. We would all run through a wall for him because we know he would do the same for us.”