So I got to thinking, let's say Veatch actually had the authority to hire a new coach, and he DID make the calls, but the obvious upgrade candidates weren't interested so they sat down, looked at what they had with Bruce and made the decision to go forward and support him.
Reasons why others might be uninterested:
From a coaches perspective, Bruce has been to the tourney 3/5 years and won a conference title in the Big 12 (They don't give 2 craps about who's players he did it with, I've never once heard a coach allude to that in any way). He spent five years under a micro manager AD that ran off a great coach before him. After his AD left, his team went on a winning streak to knock off a top 10 team (again) and secure a tourney spot along with winning a first four game. Also, coaches don't listen to press conferences so they don't hear anything about excuses or complaints, they just see a lot of close losses in the box score and probably put more of the responsibility on players than the fans do.
Additionally, the call from Veatch would sound like "Hey, I'm the acting AD. I'm being considered for the position but I may or may not be your boss. In fact, you won't know who your boss is until after you accept this job, but there's a lot of good names being floated and KState is awesome, so come take this job."
I dunno, they may very well have made all the calls and got told no by everyone except the ones who were so much of a reach and risk that they seemed more risky than giving Bruce another year. I've heard crazier things.
Reasons why others might be uninterested:
From a coaches perspective, Bruce has been to the tourney 3/5 years and won a conference title in the Big 12 (They don't give 2 craps about who's players he did it with, I've never once heard a coach allude to that in any way). He spent five years under a micro manager AD that ran off a great coach before him. After his AD left, his team went on a winning streak to knock off a top 10 team (again) and secure a tourney spot along with winning a first four game. Also, coaches don't listen to press conferences so they don't hear anything about excuses or complaints, they just see a lot of close losses in the box score and probably put more of the responsibility on players than the fans do.
Additionally, the call from Veatch would sound like "Hey, I'm the acting AD. I'm being considered for the position but I may or may not be your boss. In fact, you won't know who your boss is until after you accept this job, but there's a lot of good names being floated and KState is awesome, so come take this job."
I dunno, they may very well have made all the calls and got told no by everyone except the ones who were so much of a reach and risk that they seemed more risky than giving Bruce another year. I've heard crazier things.
