To denounce the hiring of Dana Altman as Arkansas’ new basketball coach would be foolish at this point. To say it was a great move would be an equally rash pronouncement. But one thing is certain: It isn’t sexy and it’s not likely to immediately invigorate a fan base whose interest waned during the tenure of the previous coach, Stan Heath. As much as some of the national media stars have enjoyed poking fun at Arkansas as it tried to find the perfect candidate, the program still commands a lot of respect. It’s got tradition. It also has an identity. In these parts, winning is important. But so is style of play. Fans of the Razorbacks want to be entertained with up-tempo basketball. They want to watch the Razorbacks handcuff opponents with their defense. They want fast breaks. They want to witness Arkansas crack 80 points on a consistent basis.

During Heath’s five-year reign over the basketball program, they didn’t see any of the above. Sure, there were flashes. But they were rare and fleeting — leaving everyone unsatisfied like a stick of gum that loses its flavor almost immediately upon chewing it.

Heath was wise enough to realize what the fans desired — going so far as to verbalize what they wanted to hear in the form of empty promises. Time and time again at his weekly press conferences, he said he was going to push the tempo.

But when the ball was tipped, the Razorbacks ran a prosaic half-court offense, didn’t press and certainly weren’t creating scoring opportunities in transition.

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It quickly became apparent that his words rang hollow. He cried wolf too many times.

And he would pay the price. The fans stopped believing in him. They were turned off by sludge ball, and when Heath’s job security was called into question a steady decline in ticket sales during his stay in Fayetteville was one of the main contributing factors to his demise.

When Heath was hired in 2002, the committee that was in charge of finding a new coach didn’t seem to recognize that the fans had developed an attachment to Nolan Richardson’s frenetic brand of basketball.

They liked the excitement Richardson’s “ 40 Minutes of Hell” style generated. The 10-point runs that were like knockout blows to opponents. The alley-oop dunks that charged up the crowd at Bud Walton Arena. The fast-paced action that kept people’s hearts racing.

All of it made fans come out to Bud Walton Arena.

Although some may find it hard to believe, Altman actually has a history of employing the same tactics that Richardson did back in the halcyon days of Arkansas basketball.

When Altman arrived at Creighton in 1994 after a four-year stint at Kansas State, his teams pressed, creating offense through their defense. In the Missouri Valley Conference, where deliberate offenses predominated, the Blue Jays had established their own identity. But personnel changes caused by injuries would eventually lead Altman to scrap his system in favor of one that resembled Heath’s.

“ Without making a lot of excuses, we had a lot of things that contributed to our shaky start, ” Altman told the Omaha World-Herald earlier this season before Creighton finished 22-11 and made the NCAA Tournament. “ But we’ve been able to regroup with a little different style. We don’t press 40 minutes as we’ve traditionally done. ”

At Arkansas, Altman would be wise to revert back to the brand of basketball that he used to build Creighton into a viable program. It’s one way he can win over a skeptical fan base. Leading the Razorbacks to the NCAA Tournament on an annual basis would also help his cause.

By this time next year, we should know if Altman has brought the right combination of style and substance to return Arkansas to the plateau it had reached in the mid-1990 ’s. Right now, though, let’s just allow him to do his job.

Rainer Sabin is a sports writer for the Northwest Arkansas Times