"A loss to Creighton hurts us. A win over Creighton, the only thing it does is make our fans happy. It doesn't help you come Selection Sunday. That's just the way it is."
Those words from Kenneth Kenny "Doc" Sadler, head coach of Nebraska, just the latest in a slew of pot-stirring comments about Creighton from the Head Red. Or at least, that's the version that the Omaha World-Herald printed in a front-page story today. Since Day One, Sadler has taken opportunity after opportunity to take shots at the team down the road. An interesting tact to take, considering the fans he's speaking to tend to believe that school is irrelevant and the inferior program (despite ample facts to the contrary).
Having not grown up in this area, I don't have the deep-seated hatred of Nebraska that native Creightonians do. My attitude is more of indifference; the only reason I pay any more attention to them than, say, Iowa State or Missouri is because the Jays play them every year. I don't care for Sadler, but that's got nothing to do with Nebraska, per se. I didn't like Steve Alford or Bruce Weber, either. Its funny, all three coaches had something in common:
All three made no secret of their hatred for Creighton.
In Alford's case, it was jealousy that Dana Altman consistently out-coached him and in a couple of cases, beat him on the recruiting trail. In Weber's case, as head coach in Carbondale the first line in the job description is "Must H8 CR8TN". And in Sadler's case, he desperately wants to be the top program in the state and it burns him to his core that a school with 1/8 the student body outdraws his.
I love it. I miss having opposing coaches in the Valley that everyone can rally around and hate. Oh, there's Double-G in Wichita, who's currently Public Enemy Number One in Omaha and is gaining quickly for the All-Time crown. People to stir the pot make sports fun, and having a notorious pot-stirrer 50 miles down the road is delicious.
More from Kenneth:
"And as you saw (Monday) night, very few teams - I don't care if it's Kentucky or if it's Michigan - they ain't going into Creighton and winning very many games. But nobody cares about that."
Sadler may not have started the "People only to go to Creighton games because they can buy beer" argument, but he's the highest-profile person to speak it publicly. He's spoken in the past of wishing the Creighton series didn't exist. The man puts his foot in his mouth a lot, because he's visible and speaks his mind -- something Nebraska basketball fans appreciate after the previous coach was invisible, quiet and didn't win.
His act is wearing a little thin at least with a few fans, including a blogger over at HuskerLocker.com who wrote:
Nobody cares? The fans do. Nebraskans do. Boosters do. The players do. And it's a good win, too, even if some faceless committee balks at it. How many non-conference road games feature 15,000 hostile fans? Sounds like a pretty good tuneup for the Big 12 slate to me. And, honestly, given the end of the Danny Nee era and the sleep-inducing Barry Collier era, that's more than enough justification for the series...If the Creighton series is inevitable anyway, it's fair to ask: What's to be gained, at this point, by even mildly objecting to it?
Count me as one of those fans who would have normally have no beef with Nebraska if it wasn't for Sadler's continuing attempts to protect his own self-interest at the expense of ripping on my alma mater. But he seems to relish the opportunity to do so, and when he does, depending on my mood, it either enrages me or amuses me. Today, it amuses me.
You bet.
