Digging into Sacramento State basketball

Insert Coach K's name below. Or John Calipari. Wouldn't that be a fascinating experiment? Give them minimal resources, ditch the national press and no history or tradition and we'll see who is aces as a coach. I will hold out to my very last breath believing there are standout coaches out there who simply don't have the right circumstances for an ESPN or a FoxSports to consider as part of the creme de la creme. Anyway...

Sacramento State Coach Brian Katz is in his seventh year of running a program which holds membership in the Big Sky Conference. It's historically rarely been a winner and not anywhere near a perennial league contender. More a coach killer as not a single person helming the Hornets has ever posted an overall .500 record. There's no palace or pavilion for Sacramento State to play in nor a basketball talent-only dorm with extra sized beds and chairs and complete with a daily menu from which to order breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. The Hornet recruiting budget limits the geographics of recruiting.

So how has he and his coaching staff and players done it? It being a 8-5 record thus far this season, 6-1 at home.

Katz has specifically built around two players, both now senior guards, who virtually no one else wanted out of high school: Mikh McKinney and Dylan Garrity. McKinney spent a year at Ohlone College before heading north and, despite solid numbers in both his prep and community college days, Sacramento State was his sole actual offer. Garrity put up prominent numbers playing in Orange County yet the Hornets were his single suitor.

Their effect has been as foundation layers, surrounded heavily by a bevy of local and regional talents and supplemented by Southlanders.

He brought in guys who didn't demand shiny individual spotlights. Rather it was student-athletes who understand 'we' and wanted to be part of such an atmosphere. Where some coaches swallow the bait  of so-called bigtime transfers, Katz demurred on any opportunities for talents whose ego was larger than that of the program. An atmosphere of scrapping every day, of building on the previous practice or game plus a no excuses, one for all all for one mentality became the default.

And yes, his guys are graduating -- 16 out of the for 18 who completed their eligibility.

In the programs he has helmed, Katz has won at Center High, Lassen College and San Joaquin Delta College. Now it's taking place in the state capital this season.

ESPN or FoxSports needs to head on over to J Street if a story of both individual and team success is desired. It's been happening all along in the classroom and now on the court. There is a story to be told.