IS IT TIME TO RESCUE RICHARDSON FROM COACHING HELL? Andy Katz this week profiles Nolan Richardson on ESPN.com, as the former Arkansas coach tries to whip the Mexican National Basketball Team into shape for an upcoming Olympic qualifying tournament.

Richardson is from El Paso and grew up no more than a few full-court presses away from the Mexico border, so coaching the team has been a natural for him.

That said, his task of getting Mexico to Beijing is impossible, considering the country’s three top players, Eduardo Najera, Earl Watson and Lorenzo Mata, aren’t playing.

Katz claims the trio (what the hell is Mata thinking?) have declined to play because of “political reasons”. The ESPN reporter never deciphers exactly what that entails. And needless to say, without the country’s favorite basketball son on the squad in Najera, the club will be no more than cannon fodder - Cuarenta minutos de infierno (forty minutes of hell) - or not.

The departure of Richardson at Arkansas was an ugly one. After high-flying success at Fayetteville early on (1994 NCAA title, three Final Fours), the program went into dramatic decline as his tenure worn on. And as the losses piled up, so did the criticism, something Richardson absolutely had no stomach for.

With his team 13-14, he imploded at a press conference after a loss against Kentucky in 2002, offering to quit if UA bought out his contract. Less than a week later, Athletic Director Frank Broyles obliged. Richardson soon tried to slap a lawsuit on the school two years later, but a judge threw out the complaint.

Since he was blown out in 2002, Richardson hasn’t interviewed for a Division I-A job, and he’s slowly starting to understand why:

1) His teams underperformed during the second half of his tenure in Fayetteville.
2) He antagonized and later sued his bosses.

Yes, we all piled on Richardson about acting like a complete jackass as his team slid into oblivion at the end of his time in NW Arkansas, and justifiably so.

But after reading about the stark poverty that he endured in El Paso as a child in Katz’s piece, and the fact that UTEP has failed to offer him an interview for its head coaching gig three times now, we’re starting to warm up to the man who once stoked the SEC’s fires of hell.