Nearly 10 months ago, a man stepped to the podium, said all the right things, and brought energy and excitement back to what was considered a dead program. This marked the beginning of the Brady Sallee era.

After 25 games (most of them losses), we now understand two things. He said all of the wrong things, and the problems weren’t an instant fix. These are things we should’ve known from day one, and I’ll admit it – I was gullible.

Finally, here’s Press Conference 101.

Let’s evaluate some of the statements made at the April 26 press conference.

Director of Athletics Rich McDuffie said, “Brady made this an easier choice because he promised success from the beginning.”

The Panthers have only won eight Division I games and will fail to reach the Ohio Valley Conference Tournament for the third time in five years. We now know there was no way to keep a promise like that.

There’s no way he expected to win right away, did he? Well….if we go back to April, yes.

“This will not be a rebuilding process; this is will be a successful process,” Sallee said. “I’m not going to say that it’ll take two or three years before I get my players; these are my players.”

After hearing this, Sallee’s team was motivated enough to get noticeably sick of its coach’s tendencies before conference season. No matter whose fault it was, this is a talented basketball team that refuses to show it.

Therefore, Brady will have to REBUILD this team using either girls currently in high school or junior college players. It can’t be anyone on this roster.

“To be honest, I’d kept my eye on it for a while and would think to myself that they ought to be doing better than that, Sallee said. “That’s when I began to believe I could be successful.”

This one really jumped out at me. Sallee left the door wide open. In April, he basically declared that he could do the job better than Linda Wunder. So far, it’s a dead heat.

But let’s give him a fair amount of time because we all heard he was a highly regarded recruiter out of Kent State.

“My responsibility [as a recruiter] was Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin, so that won’t be a problem,” Sallee said. “I want to stay extremely involved in recruiting. It’s the most important aspect of college basketball.”

That’s correct. It is. Sallee’s initial recruiting class was Sasa Ciulisova (gone), Tangie Sellers and Kiki Bytnar. Sellers continues in failing to look comfortable showing her athletic ability, while Bytnar, being the all-time leading scorer at Calumet High in Gary, Ind., has an assist-to-turnover ratio of 2-to-1. No, no, the other way around. My fault. One assist for every two turnovers. And the last quote.

“We need to schedule big name schools at Lantz like Virginia and Boston College,” Sallee said. “I know a lot of those coaches, and it’s not that difficult to do. All you say to them is ‘no, you don’t have to buy us; you come here and we’ll go there.”

I think it’s a safe bet that schools from the ACC or Big East won’t be rolling into Charleston anytime soon.

Five years from now, I hope that we’ll all look at this piece and think how silly that Stevens kid was. However, right now I couldn’t help but look back to that first impression of Brady Sallee and realize how ridiculous these proclamations sound.