03-14-2009, 03:27 PM
I've been a quiet observer this basketball season, but now I want to put my five cents into the ante and speak about Mike Davis as a coach, not as a man.
After three complete regular seasons as a coach, and after three conference tournaments, and one NIT tournament, this is what I see:
POSITIVES
1. We win most of the games we are supposed to win, and lose very few to the cupcakes. That's a refreshing change.
2. We've won 20 plus games in two consecutive seasons. That's solid.
3. We won 22 games this season with six scholarshippped players. That's very impressive on-the-court coaching, considering our depth issues, and our lack of post players.
4. Davis held the team together after the December debacle with players leaving or failing. I was impressed by his ability to not lose the team, which was obviously helped by having mostly seniors on the team, many of them fifth-year seniors.
5. We have won a number of close games and OT games.
6. We beat a mediocre but well regarded Kentucky team last year on the road, a mediocre but still dangerousArizona team at their place this year, a big NIT road game at VCU last year, and we gave Memphis the scare of their life last season at Bartow. So we've played well in a few big games.
7. We had a good game plan for beating Tulsa yesterday by doubling Jordan and driving at him to draw fouls. We simply could not execute our offense, or find our perimeter shooters in the second half.
NEGATIVES
1. We are about to complete our third consecutive season with no NCAA bid, in a basketball conference that is mediocre by everyone's standards.
2. This was the season where UAB should have been a Sweet Sixteen or Final Eight team, considering the core of talented senior guards and senior leadership on the team. We are not even going to the NCAAs.
3. Davs is simply not able to RETAIN players....which is essential to consistently winning and going deep in a tournament. Just look at the names who chose to leave or who had to leave: Huffman, Sarikoplolus, Berrios, Roderick, Basset, Sharpe.
Something is wrong with our retention, when we say goodbye to Huffman, Sarikopolous, Roderick and Basset without any of them playing more than a year. To be fair, Sharpe was a different matter due to the NBA.
My guestimate from afar is that there may be the perception that Davis plays favorites on the team (Vaden, for instance), and some guys can't deal with that. Do not quote me on that. I'm analyzing from a distance, so I may very well be wrong.
4. Davis is not able to keep players academically eligible, even his own son. Berrios, Davis, Mayfield, Sharpe.....maybe Roderick. That's a ridiculous amount of ineligible players on one team. There have also been multiple team discipline issues off the court.
5. If you take Indianna out of the picture (and it's fair to do that after three years here), Mike Davis is simply not a good recruiter of college basketball players - especially for a school like UAB. By that I mean players who come out of high school and can stay in school and out of trouble for at least 4 years, and can also contribute significantly on the court. He may be gifted at relationally connecting with high-quality athletes (which is important), but he has shown absolutely no ability to go into high schools and bring young men to UAB who will be successful basketball players. In fact, to bring in a high-talent player (say an 8 or 9 on a 10 point scale) who doesn't make it even a year, blocks a scholarship for a good-talent player (say a 7 on the 10 point scale) who might have stayed and developed into a high level player.
EXAMPLE: We had zero freshmen scholarship players play a full season on this year's team (Roderick left mid-season), and only A.J. on last year's team. That's one freshman scholarship player to remain with the team over two seasons. That's unbelievable. Nor have his JUCO's done particularly well at staying with the team, referring to Berrios this year and Huffman who left the team after one year. Mainly he has survived off transfers (Vaden, Toney) and off the players left from the Mike Anderson era (Delaney, Kinnard, Crawford). No college team on the planet will thrive long-term under that model of recruiting.
6. Davis is particularly not able to recruit and retain big men. Sharpe lasted half a season. Huffman left after one year. Sarikopolus transferred to Ohio State. Mayfield sits on the bench, not even wanting to be here but too ineligible to even transfer out. Just imagine how different this season would have gone with any of those players avaialble, much less all of them.
7. We won NONE of our biggest games this year (sorry, Arizona is not good enough to fall into our top 5 most important games)..Oklahoma, Boston College, Butler, Memphis (twice), Tulsa (twice). If we had won one of those key games, we would be a solid bubble team. Had we won two, we'd be in. We consistently proved that we simply did not have the depth to finish big games against tournament-calliber teams. That's not the player's fault. That's a coaching and program management problem. It's a systemic problem, that shows no signs of improving.
8. Davis, as the head coach, has left the cupboard B-A-R-E next year with regard to returning players. Crawford is our best returning post player, and AJ is our only returning guard. We have no experienced scorers on the team, depending on how Millsaps works out. A core of AJ, Moore, Crawford, and Millsap scares no one. Those all seem like good guys and decent players, but not one of those players is someone to build a team around. Not one is a Delaney, or a Kinnard, or a Vaden, or a Squeaky, or ....you get the point. Most of them would not make the roster at Auburn right now. We essentially have a low-level Sunbelt team returning, with only ONE scholarshipped post player - Crawford - and no post players signed at this time. That's a consistent, disturbing trend for Mike Davis as head coach.
Davis put all of his UAB eggs in the DeMarcus Cousins basket, and we'll all get to chew on that omelet next season.
9. Mike is not moving the program forward at the present time. He had a two year window of moderate success driven by the presence of Vaden and Delaney and Kinnard (and to a lesser degree Toney), and that window has slammed shut. There is no DeMarcus Cousins coming to save the season next year...nor is it liklely based on the recruting of the past 3 years that there will there be other players of the caliber who can make an immediate impact in their first season here. I would not be surprised to see 15 or less wins next season, depending on the schedule. I predict fan misery, but I would be happy to be wrong. I would not be shocked to see our most cupcake schedule ever, in an attempt to mask the systemic problems we have with getting and keeping quality student-athletes.
10. As an analyst, I see no successful path forward for Davis at UAB. He has shown no ability to recruit and retain high school players who will be successful here, and with the exception of the one-and-done Huffman, none of his JUCO's have been successful. His success route has been transfers and remaining players from Anderson - and he has only one transfer sitting out this year (Millsap). Thus, that pipeline has run dry. He has apparently burned some bridges with the administration over the Cousins debacle. He has promised the moon in recruiting and has delivered a handful of sand so far. He has shown persisent program management errors and problems.
I'm not casting one shred of doubt on his character as a man or a father or a husband or a friend. I'm only speaking to his coaching performance.
SUMMARY
I do not have the least hint of excitement about Davis returning. I say that as a logical, patient, passionate, long-term UAB basketball fan who first attended this university in 1983.
So I hope he leaves for what seem to be "greener pastures" for him, and I hope he finds another job this week, so that we can begin our search as soon as possible for a new coach. If not, then I hope the administration will make the hard choice to let him go.
After three complete regular seasons as a coach, and after three conference tournaments, and one NIT tournament, this is what I see:
POSITIVES
1. We win most of the games we are supposed to win, and lose very few to the cupcakes. That's a refreshing change.
2. We've won 20 plus games in two consecutive seasons. That's solid.
3. We won 22 games this season with six scholarshippped players. That's very impressive on-the-court coaching, considering our depth issues, and our lack of post players.
4. Davis held the team together after the December debacle with players leaving or failing. I was impressed by his ability to not lose the team, which was obviously helped by having mostly seniors on the team, many of them fifth-year seniors.
5. We have won a number of close games and OT games.
6. We beat a mediocre but well regarded Kentucky team last year on the road, a mediocre but still dangerousArizona team at their place this year, a big NIT road game at VCU last year, and we gave Memphis the scare of their life last season at Bartow. So we've played well in a few big games.
7. We had a good game plan for beating Tulsa yesterday by doubling Jordan and driving at him to draw fouls. We simply could not execute our offense, or find our perimeter shooters in the second half.
NEGATIVES
1. We are about to complete our third consecutive season with no NCAA bid, in a basketball conference that is mediocre by everyone's standards.
2. This was the season where UAB should have been a Sweet Sixteen or Final Eight team, considering the core of talented senior guards and senior leadership on the team. We are not even going to the NCAAs.
3. Davs is simply not able to RETAIN players....which is essential to consistently winning and going deep in a tournament. Just look at the names who chose to leave or who had to leave: Huffman, Sarikoplolus, Berrios, Roderick, Basset, Sharpe.
Something is wrong with our retention, when we say goodbye to Huffman, Sarikopolous, Roderick and Basset without any of them playing more than a year. To be fair, Sharpe was a different matter due to the NBA.
My guestimate from afar is that there may be the perception that Davis plays favorites on the team (Vaden, for instance), and some guys can't deal with that. Do not quote me on that. I'm analyzing from a distance, so I may very well be wrong.
4. Davis is not able to keep players academically eligible, even his own son. Berrios, Davis, Mayfield, Sharpe.....maybe Roderick. That's a ridiculous amount of ineligible players on one team. There have also been multiple team discipline issues off the court.
5. If you take Indianna out of the picture (and it's fair to do that after three years here), Mike Davis is simply not a good recruiter of college basketball players - especially for a school like UAB. By that I mean players who come out of high school and can stay in school and out of trouble for at least 4 years, and can also contribute significantly on the court. He may be gifted at relationally connecting with high-quality athletes (which is important), but he has shown absolutely no ability to go into high schools and bring young men to UAB who will be successful basketball players. In fact, to bring in a high-talent player (say an 8 or 9 on a 10 point scale) who doesn't make it even a year, blocks a scholarship for a good-talent player (say a 7 on the 10 point scale) who might have stayed and developed into a high level player.
EXAMPLE: We had zero freshmen scholarship players play a full season on this year's team (Roderick left mid-season), and only A.J. on last year's team. That's one freshman scholarship player to remain with the team over two seasons. That's unbelievable. Nor have his JUCO's done particularly well at staying with the team, referring to Berrios this year and Huffman who left the team after one year. Mainly he has survived off transfers (Vaden, Toney) and off the players left from the Mike Anderson era (Delaney, Kinnard, Crawford). No college team on the planet will thrive long-term under that model of recruiting.
6. Davis is particularly not able to recruit and retain big men. Sharpe lasted half a season. Huffman left after one year. Sarikopolus transferred to Ohio State. Mayfield sits on the bench, not even wanting to be here but too ineligible to even transfer out. Just imagine how different this season would have gone with any of those players avaialble, much less all of them.
7. We won NONE of our biggest games this year (sorry, Arizona is not good enough to fall into our top 5 most important games)..Oklahoma, Boston College, Butler, Memphis (twice), Tulsa (twice). If we had won one of those key games, we would be a solid bubble team. Had we won two, we'd be in. We consistently proved that we simply did not have the depth to finish big games against tournament-calliber teams. That's not the player's fault. That's a coaching and program management problem. It's a systemic problem, that shows no signs of improving.
8. Davis, as the head coach, has left the cupboard B-A-R-E next year with regard to returning players. Crawford is our best returning post player, and AJ is our only returning guard. We have no experienced scorers on the team, depending on how Millsaps works out. A core of AJ, Moore, Crawford, and Millsap scares no one. Those all seem like good guys and decent players, but not one of those players is someone to build a team around. Not one is a Delaney, or a Kinnard, or a Vaden, or a Squeaky, or ....you get the point. Most of them would not make the roster at Auburn right now. We essentially have a low-level Sunbelt team returning, with only ONE scholarshipped post player - Crawford - and no post players signed at this time. That's a consistent, disturbing trend for Mike Davis as head coach.
Davis put all of his UAB eggs in the DeMarcus Cousins basket, and we'll all get to chew on that omelet next season.
9. Mike is not moving the program forward at the present time. He had a two year window of moderate success driven by the presence of Vaden and Delaney and Kinnard (and to a lesser degree Toney), and that window has slammed shut. There is no DeMarcus Cousins coming to save the season next year...nor is it liklely based on the recruting of the past 3 years that there will there be other players of the caliber who can make an immediate impact in their first season here. I would not be surprised to see 15 or less wins next season, depending on the schedule. I predict fan misery, but I would be happy to be wrong. I would not be shocked to see our most cupcake schedule ever, in an attempt to mask the systemic problems we have with getting and keeping quality student-athletes.
10. As an analyst, I see no successful path forward for Davis at UAB. He has shown no ability to recruit and retain high school players who will be successful here, and with the exception of the one-and-done Huffman, none of his JUCO's have been successful. His success route has been transfers and remaining players from Anderson - and he has only one transfer sitting out this year (Millsap). Thus, that pipeline has run dry. He has apparently burned some bridges with the administration over the Cousins debacle. He has promised the moon in recruiting and has delivered a handful of sand so far. He has shown persisent program management errors and problems.
I'm not casting one shred of doubt on his character as a man or a father or a husband or a friend. I'm only speaking to his coaching performance.
SUMMARY
I do not have the least hint of excitement about Davis returning. I say that as a logical, patient, passionate, long-term UAB basketball fan who first attended this university in 1983.
So I hope he leaves for what seem to be "greener pastures" for him, and I hope he finds another job this week, so that we can begin our search as soon as possible for a new coach. If not, then I hope the administration will make the hard choice to let him go.
