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Evaluating Coach Dambrot


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17 minutes ago, K92 said:

To say that Zeke was not an impact player is ludicrous.

 

And forget about Zeke for a moment.  Keith has produced and developed 2 MAC Players Of The Year.  And in my opinion, neither Romeo or Isaiah were anywhere close to being seen as potentially reaching that level of player when they arrived here.  

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9 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

You guys do realize that it is exponentially more likely that the next Akron coach will bring the program back to its historical mean (middle of the road to conference bottom feeder) than it is that they would turn Akron into the next Gonzaga or Wichita State, right?

For every Mark Few there are two Dan Hipsher and Coleman Crawfords. 

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3 hours ago, clarkwgriswold said:

For every Mark Few there are two Dan Hipsher and Coleman Crawfords. 

I don't subscribe to that apocalyptic belief.

 

Buffalo shook the tree, getting rid of a solid guy in Witherspoon...and it got them to the Big Dance. It now looks like they hired a solid guy to replace Hurley.

 

Ohio has gone through several coaches in the past decade. They seem to be vying for a MAC championship on an annual basis?

 

Kent has seen Waters...Heath...Christian...Ford...Senderoff...and they've consistently won 20 games and competed for championships.

 

It would be asinine to hold on to an underachieving, or mediocre coach "...because the next hire might be Coleman Crawford." If that is your standard, you shouldn't be in Division 1 college basketball.

 

If Dambrot left for Duquesne or South Florida, Larry Williams should be able to find an equivalent-or-better replacement. If he hired "the next Coleman Crawford," our problem would be that UA hired the wrong AD, not that finding a solid basketball coach is impossible.

 

Thankfully we don't need to worry about any basketball HC in the near future. But when the inevitable happens, it doesn't scare me. Buffalo, Ohio, Kent...they all change coaches regularly, and still win 20 games...and they still beat the Zips once or twice per season...and they still compete for MAC Championships. And none of their hires remotely resembled Coleman Crawford.

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17 minutes ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

I don't subscribe to that apocalyptic belief.

 

Buffalo shook the tree, getting rid of a solid guy in Witherspoon...and it got them to the Big Dance. It now looks like they hired a solid guy to replace Hurley.

 

Ohio has gone through several coaches in the past decade. They seem to be vying for a MAC championship on an annual basis?

 

Kent has seen Waters...Heath...Christian...Ford...Senderoff...and they've consistently won 20 games and competed for championships.

 

It would be asinine to hold on to an underachieving, or mediocre coach "...because the next hire might be Coleman Crawford." If that is your standard, you shouldn't be in Division 1 college basketball.

 

If Dambrot left for Duquesne or South Florida, Larry Williams should be able to find an equivalent-or-better replacement. If he hired "the next Coleman Crawford," our problem would be that UA hired the wrong AD, not that finding a solid basketball coach is impossible.

 

Thankfully we don't need to worry about any basketball HC in the near future. But when the inevitable happens, it doesn't scare me. Buffalo, Ohio, Kent...they all change coaches regularly, and still win 20 games...and they still beat the Zips once or twice per season...and they still compete for MAC Championships. And none of their hires remotely resembled Coleman Crawford.

+1

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56 minutes ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

If Dambrot left for Duquesne or South Florida, Larry Williams should be able to find an equivalent-or-better replacement. If he hired "the next Coleman Crawford," our problem would be that UA hired the wrong AD, not that finding a solid basketball coach is impossible.

 

There's a huge difference between an AD making a bad hiring decision, and hiring a solid individual who's a good coach who doesn't win enough games here and/or has a flaw or develops a problem here that results in his lack of success that couldn't be foreseen.  

 

No, it surely isn't "impossible" to continue, and improve on the success we've had with a new coach.  But with the level of success we've had over such a long period of time, that's not a chance I'm willing to take.  We're doing everything that we CAN do to keep him here, and I think that's a wise move.    

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45 minutes ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

I don't subscribe to that apocalyptic belief.

 

Buffalo shook the tree, getting rid of a solid guy in Witherspoon...and it got them to the Big Dance. It now looks like they hired a solid guy to replace Hurley.

 

Ohio has gone through several coaches in the past decade. They seem to be vying for a MAC championship on an annual basis?

 

Kent has seen Waters...Heath...Christian...Ford...Senderoff...and they've consistently won 20 games and competed for championships.

 

Mark Few has won more NCAAT games than all these guys combined so if anything his comment was an understatement. There are 30, maybe 50 Senderoff, Coleman, Hipsher, Hurley, Witherspoons, Christian, etc. of the world for every Mark Few or George Marshall.

 

I'd have no problem getting rid of a guy to escape mediocrity. I wouldn't label Akron as mediocre, at least not compared to our peers, as we are consistently at or near the top of the conference.

 

 

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19 minutes ago, kreed5120 said:

 There are 30, maybe 50 Senderoff, Coleman, Hipsher, Hurley, Witherspoons, Christian, etc. of the world for every Mark Few or George Marshall.

There was only 1 George Marshall. I don't know how it relates to Zips basketball, but I can't argue the point.

 

george_marshall-A.jpeg

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5 hours ago, skip-zip said:

 

And forget about Zeke for a moment.  Keith has produced and developed 2 MAC Players Of The Year.  And in my opinion, neither Romeo or Isaiah were anywhere close to being seen as potentially reaching that level of player when they arrived here.  

Big Dog was.

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2 hours ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

I don't subscribe to that apocalyptic belief.

 

Buffalo shook the tree, getting rid of a solid guy in Witherspoon...and it got them to the Big Dance. It now looks like they hired a solid guy to replace Hurley.

 

Ohio has gone through several coaches in the past decade. They seem to be vying for a MAC championship on an annual basis?

 

Kent has seen Waters...Heath...Christian...Ford...Senderoff...and they've consistently won 20 games and competed for championships.

 

It would be asinine to hold on to an underachieving, or mediocre coach "...because the next hire might be Coleman Crawford." If that is your standard, you shouldn't be in Division 1 college basketball.

 

If Dambrot left for Duquesne or South Florida, Larry Williams should be able to find an equivalent-or-better replacement. If he hired "the next Coleman Crawford," our problem would be that UA hired the wrong AD, not that finding a solid basketball coach is impossible.

 

Thankfully we don't need to worry about any basketball HC in the near future. But when the inevitable happens, it doesn't scare me. Buffalo, Ohio, Kent...they all change coaches regularly, and still win 20 games...and they still beat the Zips once or twice per season...and they still compete for MAC Championships. And none of their hires remotely resembled Coleman Crawford.

 

Fair enough, but you're over-interpreting my post.  My point is that the diehard Dambrot detractors fail to recognize that the change they yearn for could result in a downturn just as easily as it could result in an upswing.  Nothing more.  Given the success we've had, I'm not in favor of taking that leap.  I'd never propose hanging onto a mediocre coach in fear of what might follow, but that's not the Zips situation. 

 

Certainly, there's room for improvement in certain areas.  If you look at my posts, I'm as critical as any at times, but I'm urging restraint for those who'd like to take quick action.  

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Yeah, but he was a big, higher profile recruit.  He was 1st Team D-1 All-Ohio.  I consider that kind of player pretty high profile.  He single-handedly took his team to the state Final Four in Columbus.  I remember Cincy fans talking about him on chat boards & they all really liked him but thought he wasn't quite explosive enough to get the offer from Cincy - even though the Cincy coaches gave him a lot of attention.  It seems like they were about spot on with their assessment.

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3 minutes ago, Blue & Gold said:

Yeah, but he was a big, higher profile recruit.  He was 1st Team D-1 All-Ohio.  I consider that kind of player pretty high profile.  He single-handedly took his team to the state Final Four in Columbus.  I remember Cincy fans talking about him on chat boards & they all really liked him but thought he wasn't quite explosive enough to get the offer from Cincy - even though the Cincy coaches gave him a lot of attention.  It seems like they were about spot on with their assessment.

 

I can name at least a dozen Akron players over the years who were much further ahead of Isaiah in terms of potential to be a Conference MVP when they got here.  

 

It doesn't matter what some fans had to say on a chat board.  What he did on the court when he got here, and what he can do on the court now is what tells the entire story.  

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58 minutes ago, skip-zip said:

 

At 3 points and 2 rebounds per game as a freshman?  That's a guy you would characterize as storming out of high school and taking control of the MAC and heading towards a conference MVP honor?

 

He needed A LOT of work.   

I remember mid-way through his freshman year, a friend of mine told me that Keith thought BD had MAC MVP potential.

i-lol-d.jpg

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7 hours ago, Captain Kangaroo said:

Thankfully we don't need to worry about any basketball HC in the near future. But when the inevitable happens, it doesn't scare me. Buffalo, Ohio, Kent...they all change coaches regularly, and still win 20 games...and they still beat the Zips once or twice per season...and they still compete for MAC Championships. And none of their hires remotely resembled Coleman Crawford.

 

It doesn't scare me as long as we have a competent Athletic Director at the time. If we had to rely on the previous AD (or equivalent), Dan Hipsher and Coleman Crawford would look like excellent choices far and above the one he would make.

Edited by Zip_ME87
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5 minutes ago, Zip_ME87 said:

 

It doesn't scare me as long as we have a competent Athletic Director at the time. It we had to rely on the previous AD (or equivalent), Dan Hipsher and Coleman Crawford would look like excellent choices far and above the one he would make.

The phobia of an AD making an absolutely awful head coaching hire needs a name.  Should it be call Wistrcill or Ianello Syndrome?

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5 hours ago, kreed5120 said:

Had recruiters known Big Dog would turn out the way he did, he would have had 100 offers coming out of high school.

Yeah, probably.  But he was completely dominant in high school.  Just not explosive and conditioning was an issue even back then.  And Xavier offered him.  So we beat out Xavier for his services & I thought that was a big deal for Akron.  We don't do that too often.  I was thrilled when we signed him.

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