Frankly, K-State solid contender

Thanks to coach Martin, Wildcats have shot to reach Final Four

Kansas guard Brady Morningstar trails Kansas State guard Jacob Pullen during the second half Wednesday, March 3, 2010 at Allen Fieldhouse.

WIldcats at a glance

• Best player on team: Jacob Pullen.

• Recent tournament success: Ended a 12-year NCAA Tournament absence in 2008 and advanced to second round.

• Positive stat of interest: Clemente has a 2.5-to-1 assists-to-turnover ratio in victories.

• Negative stat of interest: Denis Clemente has more turnovers than assists in losses.

The coach calls the players all sorts of unprintable names and the players call him but one name: Frank. Sometimes they put a “shut up” in front of Frank.

Kansas State basketball coach Frank Martin is both frank with his players and Frank to them. It’s an unconventional relationship that has worked so well for the Wildcats they enter the NCAA Tournament as a legitimate contender to make a run all the way to Indianapolis for the Final Four.

After K-State scored its second victory of the season against a super-talented Baylor University team to advance to the title game of the Big 12 tournament, Martin sent the credit to his starting guards, junior Jacob Pullen and senior Denis Clemente, who had just combined for 49 points.

“I’m proud of the kids sitting next to me, the way they’ve continued to lead our basketball team,” Martin said. “They coach me now. I don’t coach them. They tell me what to do and they tell me to shut up sometimes, which is the best thing that’s ever happened.”

When was the last time Clemente told his coach to shut up? Clemente said he didn’t know about that. Martin answered for him.

“The last timeout in the game there,” Martin said. “He did. That’s the God’s honest truth there.”

If Martin’s going to dish it out, he has to be willing to take it sometimes.

After a loss to Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse, Martin unleashed a blistering verbal attack on his players to the horror of the assembled media waiting outside the locker room.

Based on that, it would be difficult to draw any conclusion other than Martin must be an extremely difficult coach for whom to play.

“No, no, man,” Clemente insisted. “I like the way he coaches. It’s a challenge. You do something wrong and he starts yelling at you. And then it makes you like, ‘OK, I’m going to show you what I can do and next time I’m going to make a play.’ It’s a challenge for me. He’s a great coach, man. He’s a great coach and a great human being. I love playing for him.”

Even if John Wooden hadn’t beaten him to it, Martin never would write a book titled, “They Call Me Coach.” Maybe “They Call Me Frank.”

What’s with that anyway?

“He prefers to get called by Frank,” junior forward Dominique Sutton said. “He doesn’t like to be called by coach. When we all first got here as freshmen we called him coach Martin or coach and he was like, ‘We’re all grown. Don’t call me coach. Just call me Frank. That’s what I’m known as by everyone else.’ He’s an emotional guy, the relationship with him is if you’re doing your job and he trusts you and you trust him, you get along fine. He gets mad at us if we call him coach.”

The tone and volume of the communication from the coach can be downright ugly, but to hear his players tell it, it never shuts down.

“Frank’s door is open 24/7,” Sutton said. “Any time you want to sit down and talk to him you can or you can always call him. He’s always there for us. He looks at it as he’s there to help us grow.”

Part of making them grow entails putting them through brutal daily workouts.

“We practice so hard,” Clemente said. “You win the game in practice. When you practice so hard the game is so easy. We practice so hard. You don’t understand.”

How do their bodies withstand the beating?

“We lift so hard it doesn’t bother you,” Clemente said. “That’s why we’re so physical. We’re so strong. You play for K-State, that’s how we play.”

That’s why the Wildcats were so disturbed by the lopsided loss in Lawrence.

“We looked at the film and realized we were out-physicaled and our coaching staff really didn’t look upon that well because we feel like we’re one of the most physical teams in the country,” Pullen said. “We lift weights during the season. In our practices we don’t call fouls. We really beat up on each other in practice, so for us to get out-physicaled, we don’t take that well. Hopefully, we can be physical and assert our will in the paint like we have all season.”

Said Sutton: “We practice hard, go at each other hard, about to take each other’s heads off in practice and it’s paying off for us.”