Fort Worth, Texas ? Baylor basketball coach Dave Bliss, faced with an impossible situation, tried to steer his shattered program toward a semblance of normalcy Thursday.

Like I said: Impossible.

What was already a bizarre situation in Waco took a turn to the surreal when Bliss held court at three separate news conferences in an attempt to clarify some of the questions surrounding the disappearance more than three weeks ago of 6-foot-10 forward Patrick Dennehy.

The coach stood only a few feet from his missing player’s hauntingly empty locker as he spoke.

“There’s no blueprint for how to handle the type of tragedy that we’ve endured here,” Bliss told reporters. “What you try to do is you try to take a little bit of a read off 9/11 because (after) 9/11, I think, what they tried to implore us all, is they tried to get us to get back to being normal human beings.”

Sorry, coach. Nice try. But there’s just nothing normal about this situation and there won’t be until Dennehy turns up safe, his body is found or a rational explanation for his disappearance comes to light.

There are too many unanswered questions, too much about Dennehy’s disappearance — which is being investigated as a potential homicide by Waco police — still shrouded in mystery to even talk about getting back to normal yet.

Granted, Bliss has a job to do. He’s a good coach and a good man. What’s he supposed to do, give up on the coming basketball season four months before it even starts? Bliss said he would turn his attention to recruiting for the first time in weeks.

But get back to normal? That’s not likely to happen anytime soon.

Bliss said he called the news conferences on short notice because “you all don’t have much information and I don’t have much information. … What happens out of all that is there gets to be unbelievable confusion, and then there gets to be tremendous inaccuracies.”

Bliss was obviously upset about recent news stories that included assertions from Dennehy’s family and friends that Dennehy and former roommate and teammate Carlton Dotson told assistant coaches that they had been threatened. Bliss said none of his staff was aware of any threats.

Obviously, somebody here isn’t telling the truth, or has been misinformed.

Bliss also said he had been told by Waco police that none of his current players were suspects.

Maybe they’re telling “him” that, but that’s not what they told reporters Thursday.

“We’ll see,” a Waco police detective said.

Bliss is used to being able to control things. There are routines to follow in practice. There’s a playbook for games. He knows basketball like he knows the back of his hand. But this … this is way beyond his experience.

“I’m a basketball coach. I don’t know the area that I’m in now,” Bliss admitted. “I don’t have a notebook to refer to. I’m doing things every day that I never, ever, ever dreamed I would be involved in.

“This is the most surreal and unbelievable situation that any basketball coach could ever be in.”

He’ll get little argument on that.

“This situation is uncharted waters,” Bliss said.

“I want to continue to work and try to bring this to a speedy solution. There isn’t any road map how to do that, for a basketball coach.”

No, this is not a normal situation, and to pretend otherwise is simply wishful thinking.