VCU Vs. Akron

[Dave in Green]

Of course it's fair to discuss Coach Dambrot's job performance. Virtually every employee gets an annual job performance review. While we fans are not the ones who formally conduct that review, we certainly have some skin in the game by virtue of the game tickets that we may purchase and the funds we may donate to UA that end up helping pay his salary. A good performance review is fair and comprehensive, and considers all aspects of the job, not just a few of the one-liners that are casually tossed about on internet forums. For instance, consider the following from Marla Ridenour's ABJ story this morning when evaluating Coach Dambrot's performance and deciding on an action plan:

Wistrcill hopes UA can reach the level of programs like Creighton or Gonzaga, but doesn’t foresee the Zips’ budget being as big as those schools.

“There’s certainly things we can improve on as a program when you compare us to some of the high mid-majors. It’s hard to consider Creighton or Gonzaga, they’re not really mid-majors, what they have and what they spend,” Wistrcill said. “That’s our goal, to be one of those teams that is consistently in the NCAA Tournament and winning games and being that nightmare team that nobody wants to see across from them on the bracket.”

So whoever the UA basketball coach may happen to be is charged with putting together a winning program on the Creighton/Gonzaga/Butler/VCU level without a Creighton/Gonzaga/Butler/VCU level budget. How many qualified coaches are out there looking for a job like that? MAC level schools with MAC level budgets get MAC level coaches. The occasional high performer moves on at the first opportunity for a bigger paycheck. A rising young coach like John Groce comes along, takes OU to the NCAA Sweet 16 and immediately leaves for the big bucks of the Big Ten. His replacement takes the same lineup of players with another year of playing experience and loses in the first round of the NIT.

Arguably, Coach Dambrot is currently the most consistently successful veteran coach in the MAC. He's slowly and steadily been building up the level of the Zips' recruits and their level of play. It's a great question to ask whether he can take the next step and start winning in the NCAA tournament or if he's reached his ceiling as a coach and will never rise above where he is right now. But even if an extensive analysis arrives at the conclusion that he can't continue improving, what's the next move? The UA basketball budget is not going to be raised to the level of the best mid-major teams with high-major budgets that regularly win games in the tournament. Where do you find the mystery coach who can exceed Coach Dambrot's results at UA over the long haul at the same salary and with the same budget?

Again, I see no problem with having such a discussion. But to be meaningful it needs to be fair and comprehensive, as well as taking into consideration whether or not there are any viable options.

[bigzipguy]

On the money DIG

[akronzips71]

No, they weren't put in that position last night. Dambrot does a lot of things slowly by design. Last night was not a night to make adjustments slowly. By the time they were made, the game was out of control.

Recruiting? Let's look at this. Actually, let's look back at the game last night. Remove the score from the screen and what did we see. I saw a team much more athletic with better developed basketball skills. Faster, quicker, better shooters, etc. Put Diggs and AA on the court with a healthy Walsh and does that go away. Maybe with Diggs, but not with AA or Walsh. Heck, Walsh washed out of an A10 program.

Dambrot is recruiting top notch MAC players. These players would finish in the middle of the A10. I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything when I say that. If we want to get better, we have to know where we are and why we haven't gotten there yet. Are we not getting the players or are players not being developed? If the answer is yes to either one of those questions, then the first place to criticize is the head coach. My opinion...the team has talent that isn't getting properly developed. It's been going on for years but since the MAC is so bad, we can continue to win 20 games a year. Since we now have an untouchable coach, I can only assume it will continue because there is no incentive to change.

The guy who owns my wife's company always says, "Nothing good comes from people being completely comfortable." Dambrot is too comfortable at Akron. He needs to challenge himself to reach outside his comfort zone and make changes to the program that need to be made. He has two assistants who have been with the program for at least 8 years. If you are an assistant at Akron for eight years, you don't have any ambition so you aren't an asset to the program. Start with changing the dynamics of the program by changing an assistant or two. It sounds harsh, but change is necessary. Different ideas would be good for the program and a different location might be good for some of those assistants. Move your cheese Keith.

You ignore the most basic truth:

AKRON is NOT California or Hawaii or Florida. It is a grungy industrial city in the midwest. It is not glamorous. UA is NOT Ivy league. It does not play in the Big 10. The chances of getting to the Professional level in any sport coming out of AKRON are very very low. Does happen once in a while, not often.

The point being, it is impossible to compete for recruits that can get offers from Power 6 or BCS or Ivy League schools. We don't have to offer what they have to offer. Please don't give me the blah blah blah about how highly rated UA is or anything else.

Given the choice to attend AKRON or Princeton or OSU or FSU or MICHIGAN STATE on a full ride, where would YOU get that sheepskin?

The point of my post is NOT to knock AKRON OHIO or UA? I graduated from there, remember?

The point is that ANY coach who works for AKRON has to play the hand he is dealt. We got Zeke, that was a big WOW. But in general, UA will never get Top 50 recruits, and not because we are in the MAC. Because you are in AKRON OHIO. It is not a glamour spot. Face it, that is the truth.

So what a good coach does is spot diamonds in the rough - players who are not getting big time offers for one reason or another. Tree was one of those, so was Len Paul back in the day. That is what KD has done. He recruiting has been very very good. But understand that "top tier" recruits will rarely consider Akron, and if they do, other MAC schools are in the mix. K E N T has way more name recognition, at least in part because of a certain day in 1970. OU, Ball State, Miami DO have more name recognition. Remember, I live in New York. Prior to the internet, I could never even get an Akron score. Totally off the charts in the media. So even when a quality recruit will consider Akron, we almost always have to compete with other MAC schools that may have more to offer for one reason or another. Personally, going back a lot of years, I know I would have been happier in a "college town" than the urban setting. Remember, these athletes almost always live on campus, or at least are not Townies. The Akron campus life has always left a lot to be desired, because it has always been a Townie school.

So remember I am not knocking AKRON or UA. I am an alum. I am merely stating the facts. KD has done a WONDERFUL job. Going to the next level is very hard when you recruit for a school like Akron. Just ask Terry Bowden about that.

[akronzips71]

I just have to add, where I live there is St. Johns for BB, and basically no one for football. Hofstra dropped their program. There are two million people living on Long Island. The top athletes leave. They go to Syracuse and Maryland and OSU and Penn State.

Akron is dead in the middle of Sports America.

For LOCAL recruits you have to compete with YSU, CSU, Can't State, and OU and Miami and BG are drive home on the weekends close. It is hard to attract local talent.

[LZIp]

You are thinking about it way too much zips71. Make some noise in the NCAA tourney, and your budget will increase as well as talent. Its funny you knock Akron by saying nobody wants to come here, they will choose anywhere over here blah blah, but you mention Zeke Marshall in the same post.

Location plays a small part in a recruit's decision, sometimes a major part. There are many factors that a recruit looks at for choosing a school, but the most common and important factor is how good the program is.

No shit that Terry Bowden is having trouble bringing in recruits. We havent beaten a D1 opponent in 2 years.

It looks like Bowden did great with this class with what he has to work with.

[skip-zip]

I have to keep asking myself:

What happened in 1 year in regards to the difference between VCU and Akron?

Did we just play out of our minds when we played them at the JAR in 2011-2012? Has VCU recruited that well over the last couple of years? I just don't see how two programs could have gotten separated from each other by that kind of margin in just one year. It was beyond dominating.

[Districtballer]

I have to keep asking myself:

What happened in 1 year in regards to the difference between VCU and Akron?

Did we just play out of our minds when we played them at the JAR in 2011-2012? Has VCU recruited that well over the last couple of years? I just don't see how two programs could have gotten separated from each other by that kind of margin in just one year. It was beyond dominating.

It was a pretty big game at your place with Terry Bowden being introduced in a pretty full house.

VCU also had an extremely inexperienced team last year after graduating 4 of 5 starters from our Final Four team. Brad Burgess was our senior leader who had tons of experience, but everyone else coming in was either in high school or a bench player the year before. VCU won the previous matchup by 17 in 2010.

The big thing is that these guys have matured a great deal. We are a much better team this year than we were last year. 9 of the guys on our team last year were underclassmen, and 2 upperclassmen were bench players the year before (15 and 5 minutes per game). We were a 12-seed last year. There's a reason we're a 5-seed this year.

Akron also improved a great deal, but when you don't have the PG who really makes you guys go, it's just a match-up thing. Forsythe and Ibitayo weren't going to play much against us and don't in general, but Brian Walsh being under the weather was also a minus for you guys.

This is just one of those games where the margin doesn't tell the whole story. Is VCU a better program? Probably. 5-0 (2-0 at home, 2-0 at the Jar, 1-0 in the NCAA's with Akron having a significant location advantage) against the Zips the last 6 seasons speaks for itself. Are we 46 points better? No way.

[akronzips71]

You are thinking about it way too much zips71. Make some noise in the NCAA tourney, and your budget will increase as well as talent. Its funny you knock Akron by saying nobody wants to come here, they will choose anywhere over here blah blah, but you mention Zeke Marshall in the same post.

Location plays a small part in a recruit's decision, sometimes a major part. There are many factors that a recruit looks at for choosing a school, but the most common and important factor is how good the program is.

No shit that Terry Bowden is having trouble bringing in recruits. We havent beaten a D1 opponent in 2 years.

It looks like Bowden did great with this class with what he has to work with.

I did not say nobody wants to go there, I said specifically that for a top recruit, given the choice of Akron Ohio or Notre Dame or OSU or Michigan or Princeton, where do you think he is going to get that degree? THAT is the burden the coach has to overcome.

Winning in the NCAA, yes that helps big time. But it does not change the fact that offered Florida and Akron, mom and dad tell the kid to go to Florida. Or Rutgers. Or Wake Forest. Etc and so on.

[Dave in Green]

@Districtballer, I was hoping that you'd post a response from the VCU perspective to skip-zip's question. The VCU team I saw last night was far superior to the one I saw at the JAR last season. I think the only thing you didn't include about the Zips was the loss of Quincy Diggs for the entire season. Adding that to the loss of Abreu and the effective loss of Walsh for last night's game severely depleted what was expected to be a strong, veteran Zips backcourt this season. Replay last night's game with Diggs, Abreu and a healthy Walsh playing and it's a much closer game. No team in the NCAA tournament would be unaffected by the loss of its top 3 guards.

[a-zip]

I have to keep asking myself:

What happened in 1 year in regards to the difference between VCU and Akron?

Did we just play out of our minds when we played them at the JAR in 2011-2012? Has VCU recruited that well over the last couple of years? I just don't see how two programs could have gotten separated from each other by that kind of margin in just one year. It was beyond dominating.

This is a valid point and I think supports Coach D. Last year, he did not have all the adversity and suprises he was dealt this year and we lost in OT. Last night was a perfect storm.

[Blue & Gold]

I have to keep asking myself:

What happened in 1 year in regards to the difference between VCU and Akron?

Did we just play out of our minds when we played them at the JAR in 2011-2012? Has VCU recruited that well over the last couple of years? I just don't see how two programs could have gotten separated from each other by that kind of margin in just one year. It was beyond dominating.

VCU literally beat us worse than we beat Tiffin, Malone or John Carroll.

On national t.v.

Ouch.

[edit:] But I think the announcers were very gracious towards us. They mentioned numerous times we were depleted by Abreu's suspension and Walsh's flu bug. Back in the studio, Kenny "The Jet" Smith even chalked the point discrepancy up to our starting PG being suspended. He said something to the effect, "I'm not even going to mention his [Abreu's] name because if you get suspended you don't deserve for us to use your name on national t.v." (He meant that in a negative way; not like he was protecting AA's identity until proven guilty in the court of law.)

[a-zip]

No, they weren't put in that position last night. Dambrot does a lot of things slowly by design. Last night was not a night to make adjustments slowly. By the time they were made, the game was out of control.

Recruiting? Let's look at this. Actually, let's look back at the game last night. Remove the score from the screen and what did we see. I saw a team much more athletic with better developed basketball skills. Faster, quicker, better shooters, etc. Put Diggs and AA on the court with a healthy Walsh and does that go away. Maybe with Diggs, but not with AA or Walsh. Heck, Walsh washed out of an A10 program.

Dambrot is recruiting top notch MAC players. These players would finish in the middle of the A10. I'm not trying to be a jerk or anything when I say that. If we want to get better, we have to know where we are and why we haven't gotten there yet. Are we not getting the players or are players not being developed? If the answer is yes to either one of those questions, then the first place to criticize is the head coach. My opinion...the team has talent that isn't getting properly developed. It's been going on for years but since the MAC is so bad, we can continue to win 20 games a year. Since we now have an untouchable coach, I can only assume it will continue because there is no incentive to change.

The guy who owns my wife's company always says, "Nothing good comes from people being completely comfortable." Dambrot is too comfortable at Akron. He needs to challenge himself to reach outside his comfort zone and make changes to the program that need to be made. He has two assistants who have been with the program for at least 8 years. If you are an assistant at Akron for eight years, you don't have any ambition so you aren't an asset to the program. Start with changing the dynamics of the program by changing an assistant or two. It sounds harsh, but change is necessary. Different ideas would be good for the program and a different location might be good for some of those assistants. Move your cheese Keith.

Coach Dambrot did not have 60% of his anticipated starting line up (Diggs, Abreu, Walsh). He made adjustments through the year to get the longest winning streak in the nation, he made adjustments to win the MAC regular season and Tournament. That gets a good performance review in my book.

You want to criticize his recruiting after he landed the top rated player the MAC has ever had (I like the rest of his recruits too). He is doing a great job with the hand he has been dealt. Let me tell ya, Shaka would get the same level players if he was at UoA and playing in the JAR.

Man, it is fine to question things but I do not understand your thinking and perception of reality.

[LZIp]

Coach Dambrot did not have 60% of his anticipated starting line up (Diggs, Abreu, Walsh). He made adjustments through the year to get the longest winning streak in the nation, he made adjustments to win the MAC regular season and Tournament. That gets a good performance review in my book.

You want to criticize his recruiting after he landed the top rated player the MAC has ever had (I like the rest of his recruits too). He is doing a great job with the hand he has been dealt. Let me tell ya, Shaka would get the same level players if he was at UoA and playing in the JAR.

Man, it is fine to question things but I do not understand your thinking and perception of reality.

Not sure if Diggs would have been a starter this year or not, but I dont see any of the 3 you mentioned playing the 3. Also, Diggs was known to be gone well before the season, so I am not going to give KD a pass on that because he had all season to make the adjustment (and did fine I might add). Our freshman contributed.

KD might have gotten the top rated MAC player of all time, but on the other hand, how many tournament (not counting conference) games has he won with that talent?

Pretty sure its 0.

[ksu sucks]

Basketball Expenses (2010):

Akron -- 1.6 Mill

VCU -- 2.7 Mill

Having an extra million sure helps recruiting.

VCU has the advantage of not fielding a FBS football team.[please hold any jokes about Akron football ]

[zipsbandman]

And now the doomsday posts. We lost A game. A loss is a loss regardless of the score. As a fan, this is better than losing a heart breaker. The better team won. VCU clearly has elite talent, but there is no reason that we cannot win a game in the dance. We had a crappy draw, plain and simple and the weight of this season finally collapsed on us. Unfortunately luck plays a part in a basketball season. OU, Cleveland State, and Can't all got it done in the post season. I remember we were all crying when Miami banked one against us in the MAC finals, but we busted through that. Now we hit another snag, and that is to win in the tournament. We'll be back to the dance. We finally figured out how to schedule. We have the best coach in the MAC. The University is going to do something about our facility issue. Dambrot is staring to bring in the athletes. We clearly need more though, and that was obvious yesterday. We also need to clean up this off the court garbage. This is what we should be annoyed about.

[dre22era]

All this finger pointing is pointless to me especially the people that are questioning KD as the coach.

My only beef with KD is the fact that we have like 7 guards on the team but only one guard who is of course no longer with the team can actually handle the ball. It absolutely makes no sense to have that many guards on the roster especially on scholarship and none of them can handle the ball.

If we had a ball handler last nights score would look a lot better. Akron literally had no time to set up plays because damn near all their energy was used on getting the ball across the court. I've seen players in the UA Rec Center with better handles

[ksu sucks]

BTW, the top 25 frequently features teams like Kansas, Pittsburgh, Indiana, etc. These aren't necessarily destination locales. 18 year olds dream about playing for Kansas for one reason-- they win.

Akron needs to win on the big stage. VCU did, and look at the quality of players they recruit. One year made a big difference for them.

[Dave in Green]

@LZip, Q was the MAC Sixth Man of the Year last season and would have been a senior this season at the top of his collegiate skills. Sometimes a top sixth man can be as important to the team, or more so, than some of the starters. When you lose some of your best players, you can adjust all you want. But the adjustments basically involve trying to fit less experienced and/or less effective players into the bigger shoes of the missing players. The backup players may do better than expected in their new roles. But the finished product (team) is not likely to be as strong as it was with secondary players trying to fill bigger shoes. These guys are not cardboard cutouts that you can replace indiscriminately with no effect on team performance.

[LZIp]

@LZip, Q was the MAC Sixth Man of the Year last season and would have been a senior this season at the top of his collegiate skills. Sometimes a top sixth man can be as important to the team, or more so, than some of the starters. When you lose some of your best players, you can adjust all you want. But the adjustments basically involve trying to fit less experienced and/or less effective players into the bigger shoes of the missing player(s). The backup players may do better than expected in their new roles. But the finished product (team) is not likely to be as strong as it was with secondary players trying to fill bigger shoes. These guys are not cardboard cutouts that you can replace indiscriminately with no effect on team performance.

Im well aware of the importance of the 6th man, and more specifically, Diggs to our team.

[Dave in Green]

Im well aware of the importance of the 6th man, and more specifically, Diggs to our team.

It sure didn't sound like it when you said this:

Not sure if Diggs would have been a starter this year or not, but I dont see any of the 3 you mentioned playing the 3. Also, Diggs was known to be gone well before the season, so I am not going to give KD a pass on that because he had all season to make the adjustment (and did fine I might add). Our freshman contributed. .....

[roopride]

Thought I would chime in. I don't know how anybody can use last nights games as some evaluation or stament about the ZIPs direction. We have played many good teams over the last couple years and done very well. Certainly the wheel fell off last night, but this program has only gotten better over the last 8 years. The last two resruiting classes are very strong. We now expect to lead the league, win the tournament and go to the NCAA.

If KD has hit the ceiling by going to the championship game 7 years in a row and to the NCAA 3 out of the last 5. Who cares.

Trying to compare last night's game against VCU and compare it to how our program is getting better or worse is useless. VCU is a nice team and entered the game very confident. The ZIPs have a nice team but given all that was going on, you could see there was little confidance and no swager when that game started. VCU played well and we saw how it went.

Specific to the game. Our defense was way out of whack. Yes, playing better competition and VCU did hit shot after shot. But regardless we just seemed to be off defensively. Gave open shots, they got to the rim, and gotten second chances.

Specific to the program - as stated above, but we do need to work on strengthening the schedule.

GO ZIPS.

[The Hip Zip]

A lot of interesting perceptions on last nights fiasco, some on the money and some not so much.

In ref to the VCU/Mich game, I give the advantage to VCU despite the location of the game. I think that Mich is exactly the kind of team that the Rams match up pretty well with. Yes, Michigan does have guard play but I think you need more than just solid guard play to beat VCU. Mich is pretty soft inside and will lack the ability to take advantage of VCU's lack of height. VCU's guards will get after their guards like there is no tomorrow and Shaka > JB . I gladly take the 3' with VCU and enjoy their victory.

[LZIp]

It sure didn't sound like it when you said this:

I said Im not sure if he could play the 3 and I said I think the freshman did a fine job stepping in for him. Not sure where you are getting me saying he isnt valuable or whatever. Just tired of everybody using the excuse of not having Diggs this season. It wasnt a loss at a crucial time like AA or Walsh. McAdams and Kretzer made big plays, even won us a few games.

In hind sight, losing Quincy wasnt a killer until our starting PG decided he wanted to traffic marijuana.

[Blue & Gold]

And now the doomsday posts. We lost A game. A loss is a loss regardless of the score. As a fan, this is better than losing a heart breaker. The better team won. VCU clearly has elite talent, but there is no reason that we cannot win a game in the dance. We had a crappy draw, plain and simple and the weight of this season finally collapsed on us. Unfortunately luck plays a part in a basketball season. OU, Cleveland State, and Can't all got it done in the post season. I remember we were all crying when Miami banked one against us in the MAC finals, but we busted through that. Now we hit another snag, and that is to win in the tournament. We'll be back to the dance. We finally figured out how to schedule. We have the best coach in the MAC. The University is going to do something about our facility issue. Dambrot is staring to bring in the athletes. We clearly need more though, and that was obvious yesterday. We also need to clean up this off the court garbage. This is what we should be annoyed about.

Good post, Zipsbandman.

^^^^^But I'd rather lose a heartbreaker, especially on national t.v.

[dre22era]

BTW, the top 25 frequently features teams like Kansas, Pittsburgh, Indiana, etc. These aren't necessarily destination locales. 18 year olds dream about playing for Kansas for one reason-- they win.

Akron needs to win on the big stage. VCU did, and look at the quality of players they recruit. One year made a big difference for them.

I came out of high school in Richmond VA and know a lot of people that attended VCU including my mom.

VCU's success didn't happen overnight. Its been 15 years since VCU started putting a lot of focus on their basketball program. They opened up a new arena in 1999 that has a capacity of 7,617 at a cost of $30.1 mil. They currently have the 13th highest home court winning percentage in D1 and is arguably the toughest place to play in the A-10. Coach Jeff Capel jumped started the new era leading them to a 23-8 record and a trip to the NCAA as a #13 seed giving #4 Wake Forest a run for their money. At the height of his success Jeff Capel left and took the HC job at Oklahoma. (Recruited Blake Griffin)

In comes Anthony Grant who led them to a school record 28 wins in his 1st year and the Eric Maynor (Best player in the school history) era begins.

2007 as an #11 seed Eric Maynor puts VCU on the national map single handily burying #6 seed Duke Blue Devils. The next round they took #3 seed Pittsburgh into overtime after coming back from 15 down. 24-10 in 2009 and another trip to the NCAA Tourney.

Anthony Grant 76–25 record in his three seasons. Destroyed the CAA going 52-10. After the 08-09 season he left and took the job at Alabama.

Then in comes Shaka Smart.

Overall VCU had 2 great coaches prior to Shaka but during that time they were too cheap in regards to paying them. They almost lost Shaka but this time around the Alumni/Boosters and student body stepped up. VCU actually raised tuition to accommodate Shaka Smarts salary and the students overall had no problem with it. http://www.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/26283066/29566438