"Hi, you guys want to talk to me?" San Jose State basketball coach George Nessman asked a couple of reporters after practice yesterday.

It wasn't what he said but how he said it — with a smile and a handshake.

You figure if this man can smile with all that's on his plate at the moment, then whatever problems you might be temporarily experiencing are suddenly rendered manini. If this guy can welcome reporters' questions and muster seemingly boundless optimism in his current straits, then there's hope for the rest of us.

For here is a coach, in the midst of a four-game, eight-day stretch as the Spartans play the University of Hawai'i tonight at the Stan Sheriff Center, of a 2-16 team that has just lost its last two games by a total of four points. In one of them, his 6-foot-10 player went in for a dunk and got cleanly blocked from behind by a 6-foot-3 defender with 25 seconds remaining.

Here's a coach trying to rebuild a long-sagging program while playing what the Sagarin ratings tell us is the third toughest Division I schedule in the nation. Somebody who inherited a schedule with a road appearance against Duke.

And, you thought the 10-9 Rainbow Warriors, who share last place in the Western Athletic Conference with San Jose State and Idaho, had issues.

For San Jose State, that's just the half of it. Last month the administration asked Nessman to also oversee the operation of the women's basketball team on an emergency basis after the head coach, who is battling breast cancer, went on medical leave and the interim coach was placed on administrative leave. So Nessman assigned one of his assistants to coach the women while he stays in daily contact and monitors compliance, budget and non-game responsibilities.

The job that Nessman originally signed up for was challenging enough: turn around a program that hasn't had a winning season in 12 years. Return to respectability an outfit that has had five consecutive 20-loss seasons and 12 in the last 19 years. Make competitive a team that hasn't won a conference regular season title since it began playing an all-college schedule.

A Spartan challenge indeed, if not Mission: Impossible. And one that had seen three changes in coaches in the eight seasons preceding Nessman's arrival last year.

Like football coach Dick Tomey, Nessman is trying to reinvent the formula for success at San Jose State. He's moving away from a foundation of junior college transfers and mining San Jose's long-neglected Bay Area backyard. Forward De Vonte Thomas was the first Bay Area high school senior to get a scholarship from the Spartans in 21 years.

"I think we're beginning to move in the right direction," Nessman said.

For now, the ability to keep smiling might be the best indication of that.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8044.