CiT First Round: Akron @ IPFW Mastadons

[Dave in Green]

I would agree that a team with a one-year run has a better opportunity to build that into a program with sustained success than a program that has had neither a one-year run nor sustained success. But I think it's more likely that sustained success will eventually result in a great year's run than vice versa. If anyone has a few spare hours you can always go back over the last 5-10 years and look at the teams who came out of nowhere to win an NCAA tournament game or two and see how they've fared in the following years.

[Dave in Green]

Why does it have to be either/or? VCU seems to be a program that can do both. Why can't we be like that?

So do Butler and Gonzaga. How are their football programs doing?

[GP1]

"Think Bigger" means elevating the Program to a level is has never reached. That means winning the MAC, and subsequently winning an NCAA Tourney game. This has been accomplished by MAC, Horizon League, Summit League, Ivy League...scores of other mid-major leagues. With identical fan bases and budgets and the Zips.

Until we do that, we are "Accomlishing the Same" or "Accomplishing Less."

Very good post CK. I'd like to focus on this point.

OK, all of us can think bigger about the program all day, but it will have the same impact on the program as trying to use "the force" to lift a rock. There is only one person who this phrase applies to and that is KD. At this point, anyone who gets hyper about any criticism about KD should stop reading because I've posted something like I'm about to post before and drives people into a frenzy. It is criticism, but not intended to be nasty in any way.

I've said this before. KD is a Division II coach with Division II ideas. That doesn't make him a bad coach or bad for UofA. In fact, it doesn't take much past Division II thinking to win in the MAC. It is a terrible conference. What it makes him is a coach who has reached his limits of ability. I don't think he has the ideas to move the program forward in the way you would like him to CK.

I'm not certain KD is anything more than a "coaches clinic" coach. What he knows he learns at clinics and carries that back to UofA for implementation. To become the coach who gets Akron to a "thinking bigger" level needs to be able to come up with his own unique ideas and work them.

So, my questions would be for a person who doubts this.... Where is the creativity in the program? Where is the player development that propels a players ability forward rapidly from year one to year two? Where is the great offense? Where are the people at the secondary levels of the coaching staff who present anything other that what they have learned under KD?

We get a lot of things about KD that look smart when you read about them in the paper. Basically, they are a bunch of tired cliches. "KD likes to bring scoring off the bench."...Really?...This is one of the oldest cliches in the book and it makes no sense in 2014. Here is an oldie, but a goodie...it normally comes up mid way through January and I want to poke my eyes out when I see it...."KD is still working on the rotation."...Really?...Looks like a guy throwing crap at the wall to me. All of this looks like insecure indecision to me. Thinking is fine, but things have to get done and what KD does isn't going to move the program forward.

If I could boldly give KD two pieces of advice based upon what I see on television in games that have Hall of Fame coaches, or just a good coach who has won big in the MAC and NCAA Tournament while in the MAC. It isn't hard:

1. After Christmas, make tough decisions and start your best players (save me the argument..."But GP1, what if they are all guards?" It's a stupid argument and you know what I mean). It makes it so you maximize the potential minutes in a game your best players can play. Don't bench a starter because of one bad game and don't replace him with a one trick pony for one game because it screws up the starting line-up. Make a decision and make it work.

2. Play your best 2-3 players as much as possible throughout the game. Most of the time college teams only have 2 really good player. If that is the case, play them until they can't stand it or get in foul trouble. 30 minutes minimum. Stop with the mindless rotation game.

I don't think any of my advice is going to get us further than where we have gotten, but I think it would make the chances much better. At the end of the day, KD isn't the guy to take the program to a high level. There is nothing about him/the program that indicates he can. There aren't the guys on the coaching staff to do it and most of all, there aren't the guys on the court to do it either. Nevertheless, he is going to be around for a long time and there is no reason for him to change since he is basically locked into a contract so we can keep having these discussions over and over again.

BTW...the guys on the court. For a team with as much success as we have had in recent years, there should be better and more versatile talent on the floor. I was the first to say the Zips have too many one trick ponies, and I stand by that. You guys can think what you want, but if there isn't drastic improvement in the returning team next year, the Zips have a problem. Many of you know this too and are too nice to point it out.

[mivid12]

florida gulf coast played in the NIT this year....i wouldn't underestimate what a sweet 16 run would do for this program...damn near like a national championship...and if you could follow it up with at least an appearance or even one win, you've got peoples attention....FGCU probably got the nit bid b/c of their ncaa run last year...and quite frankly, i think nationally when people think of the mac they think of OU and Can't and likely have no idea about the zips conference success

[GP1]

So do Butler and Gonzaga. How are their football programs doing?

Are we talking about football or basketball? The success of a basketball team does not depend on the success or failure of a football team. It is an illusion fans create for themselves to believe one can't be successful without the other failing. It's small minded.

BTW, Butler football went 9-4 last year making the I-AA playoffs. They were good in basketball last year...how could this happen?

[jupitertoo]

Very good post CK. I'd like to focus on this point.

OK, all of us can think bigger about the program all day, but it will have the same impact on the program as trying to use "the force" to lift a rock. There is only one person who this phrase applies to and that is KD. At this point, anyone who gets hyper about any criticism about KD should stop reading because I've posted something like I'm about to post before and drives people into a frenzy. It is criticism, but not intended to be nasty in any way.

Wow. I feel cheated that I had to read this. Totally uninformed perspective.

[Dave in Green]

VCU, Butler, Gonzaga and UA are all schools with limited resources. Three of them elected to make basketball their primary focus in athletics and one made football primary and basketball secondary.

[GP1]

VCU, Butler, Gonzaga and UA are all schools with limited resources. Three of them elected to make basketball their primary focus in athletics and one made football primary and basketball secondary.

It can't be us because the highest paid person in our Athletic Department is our basketball coach, so I'm going with Butler.

Butler plays in one of the oldest arenas in the country and their football team made the I-AA playoffs last year. Clearly, football is a priority over basketball.

Unless, it really isn't about facilities, but really about getting talent, developing talent and coaching. Over the past five years I can't think of many, if any, MAC basketball teams more talented than us but we fall short. The list of MAC teams making NCAA runs is too long to list at this point and some of those schools play in arenas just as bad, if not worse, than the JAR (Can't & Miami). What's left? Is the talent being developed fully? Is the coaching staff using the talent properly? Everything points in one direction and it isn't a new basketball arena. We would be in the exact situation with a better arena.

[Dave in Green]

@GP1, I actually give you credit for creating such an imaginative and colorful theory about Coach Dambrot, and your doggedness in sticking to it. Very entertaining.

[jupitertoo]

It can't be us because the highest paid person in our Athletic Department is our basketball coach, so I'm going with Butler.

Butler plays in one of the oldest arenas in the country and their football team made the I-AA playoffs last year. Clearly, football is a priority over basketball.

Unless, it really isn't about facilities, but really about getting talent, developing talent and coaching. Over the past five years I can't think of many, if any, MAC basketball teams more talented than us but we fall short. The list of MAC teams making NCAA runs is too long to list at this point and some of those schools play in arenas just as bad, if not worse, than the JAR (Can't & Miami). What's left? Is the talent being developed fully? Is the coaching staff using the talent properly? Everything points in one direction and it isn't a new basketball arena. We would be in the exact situation with a better arena.

Seriously, dude, do you not know the difference between IA and IAA? The financial requirements of IA are astronomical in comparison. Not to mention the $62MM football stadium UA will be paying for over the next 50 years.

[Dave in Green]

@GP1, just trying to clarify based on your apparent enthusiasm for D-II football: Are you advocating that UA join Butler in D-II? My understanding is that the difference in D-I and D-II football budgets is significant. Would you be in favor of moving the Zips to D-II football and investing the difference in Zips basketball?

[zippy5]

I don't believe Butler plays D-II football, thanks to the Dayton rule.

[Dave in Green]

Yeah, I got my football and basketball divisions mixed up. It's FCS and FBS. Found the following quote from this story:

Overall, the typical FBS athletic program costs about $11.5 million more than it generates (compared to $9.2 million in FCS) and must get the difference from the university whose name it carries. Essentially, that's value that the typical FBS institution places on intercollegiate athletics—a tough sell to some at time of austerity budgets across higher education.

So if UA has typical FBS program costs, it could save $2.3 million per year if it went to a typical FCS program like Butler. That $2.3 million could pump the basketball program up to Butler/Gonzaga/VCU level funding.

Mind you, I'm not advocating this. I'm merely pointing it out as part of the Butler/Gonzaga/VCU basketball program discussion.

[LZIp]

what about BYU, Boise, Utah, San Diego St, Memphis (excluding the past few years of football), hell..even OU. What is the excuse not to have any combination of success in both sports that those mid-majors have had?

[Dave in Green]

It's definitely fairer to compare schools with similar overall resources that have both FBS football programs and D-I basketball programs. Schools that make basketball their top priority and provide significantly greater resources to their basketball teams by playing at a lower level in football have an inherent advantage. That's the point I've been trying to make since VCU was brought into the discussion.

[Balsy]

We might as well just drop that conversation altogether though. After investing in Infocision Stadium...D-1 football is here to stay folks.

[Dave in Green]

Those of you portraying the problem as being a financial issue are way off!

Check this link of the top 60~ish salaries of college basketball coaches: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/college/salaries/ncaab/coach/

KD checks in at 48 in the nation and top of the mac. ...

Sorry I took so long to check this. Coach Dambrot is NOT the 48th highest paid college basketball coach. If you scroll down to the bottom you'll see that the author was only able to get salary information on 62 of the 351 D-I college coaches. Coach Dambrot was #48 out of 62. The first clue was up at the top where there is no sign of John Calipari. The closer you look the more big name coaches you see are missing. So while we can't be sure exactly where Coach Dambrot stands in the list of 351, it's safe to assume he's behind all of the BCS conference basketball coaches plus the new Big East and other higher profile conferences than the MAC.

[a-zip]

So, this thread starts to beg the question of what "thinking bigger" means. Are we talking just about basketball or our program as a whole.

[Valpo Zip]

Sorry I took so long to check this. Coach Dambrot is NOT the 48th highest paid college basketball coach. If you scroll down to the bottom you'll see that the author was only able to get salary information on 62 of the 351 D-I college coaches. Coach Dambrot was #48 out of 62. The first clue was up at the top where there is no sign of John Calipari. The closer you look the more big name coaches you see are missing. So while we can't be sure exactly where Coach Dambrot stands in the list of 351, it's safe to assume he's behind all of the BCS conference basketball coaches plus the new Big East and other higher profile conferences than the MAC.

Good catch Dave. I have no clue as of why Calipari's did not make the list.

The USA today, however, clearly states that this is the list of the "TOP" NCAAB salaries. It is not a list of randomly selected 60 coaches across the board to say that KD is 48/60.

The point remains however, that KD makes a base salary of $426,000 with bonuses that can earn him north of $700,000/year. That is a lot of money for a coach who never won a game in the dance.

[Dave in Green]

@Ada Zip, let's get this straight so as not to mislead anyone. It clearly states at the top of the story TOP NCAAB COACH SALARY next to Mike Krzyzewski's photo along with his 2013 salary of $7,233,976 +2,534,406 from 2012 Total Pay.

It clearly states at the bottom (my bold):

Information in the database is for the coaches at the 68 schools that participated in the 2013 NCAA men's basketball tournament. The database is displaying figures from the 62 schools for which USA TODAY Sports could obtain compensation information. There were six schools, all private institutions, for which no data could be obtained. Those schools and their coaches are: Harvard (Tommy Amaker), Iona (Tim Cluess), LIU Brooklyn (Jack Perri), Miami (Fla.) (Jim Larranaga), Saint Louis (Jim Crews), Valparaiso (Bryce Drew).

Kentucky failed to make the NCAA tournament last season, which explains why Calipari was not on the list. There are many high-major and a number of mid-major coaches who didn't make the NCAA tournament last season who make more than Coach Dambrot. He is far from the 48th highest paid college basketball coach.

[Valpo Zip]

That makes sense now. I did not read that line at the bottom. Thank you for being a better reader than I am . Please accept my apologies. It was not my intent to mislead any one.

[Dave in Green]

I know you're a straight shooter. It's easy to miss the footnotes in small print. USA Today does the same thing every year with NCAA tournament coach salaries. I haven't been able to find a comprehensive list of all 351 D-I coaches. By the way, almost all head coaches have incentive bonuses for specified achievements. In order for Coach Dambrot to collect the maximum bonus, he needs to win NCAA tournament games. That's a pretty strong incentive to do anything he can (within the rules, of course) to make that happen. And I don't think any of us would begrudge him the max bonus for winning NCAA tournament games.