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RE: AAC Conference Basketball
Coach Marshall says...
Quote:In his first public comments since the exodus, Marshall told The Eagle in an exclusive interview that he takes ownership of the inner-squad problems and has to “learn and adapt.” He spoke Wednesday night after five of the transfers, but before Udeze made plans to leave on Thursday.
“What I’ve got to do is reevaluate what we’re doing because I dealt with things this year that I’ve never dealt with in 35 years of coaching,” Marshall said. “I encountered things this year and had to deal with things that I’ve never dealt with.
“I had to learn. I’ve got to get better. I’ve got to adapt. But I’ve been doing that my whole career. We’ve got to learn from this and try to adapt a little better and improve.”
Any time multiple athletes leave a program at once, concerns are raised about the overall health of the program. WSU athletic director Darron Boatright told The Eagle that he has reached out to the coaching staff, the players leaving and the players staying to hear all sides of the story.
After initial conversations, Boatright remains confident in Marshall’s ability to lead the program.
“We are responsible to adapt along with the young people and I’m very confident in Gregg’s ability to continue to lead our program and will support him as much as possible,” Boatright said. “But I also think we’ll challenge each other through this to adapt and make sure we’re providing the right tools and the right things collectively for the experience to be the best it can be.”
Although six players leaving in one offseason is the largest turnover of the Marshall era, significant turnover is becoming increasingly more common in college basketball. Last season, 59 programs (17% of all Division I) had at least five players transfer, according to VerbalCommits.
But what has many WSU fans concerned is the number of good, young players leaving.
Before this last week, Marshall had only lost one significant building block (Austin Reaves in 2018) to a transfer. Of course, that changed when Burton, Stevenson and Sherfield decided to leave despite all playing at least 24 minutes per game and combining for 57 starts this past season.
“Of course you don’t want to see that many guys leave at once, but you also don’t want to see that many guys stay that are unhappy with their role,” Marshall said. “You’re saying those guys played 24 minutes a game, but what I’m telling you is that’s not enough. They weren’t pleased with that. My job is to try to win and their job is to try to play as much as they can.”
Marshall said he made a mistake in his roster construction, a problem that originated in the 2018 offseason when WSU graduated six seniors, Landry Shamet declared early for the NBA Draft, Reaves was a surprise transfer and C.J. Keyser was ruled academically ineligible. That forced Marshall and his staff to fill nine scholarships in one offseason.
After hitting on three guards — Burton, Stevenson and Dexter Dennis — in the 2018 recruiting class, Marshall followed that up by signing three more highly touted freshmen in the 2019 recruiting class: Sherfield, Fernandes and Tyson Etienne.
It was the most talented depth Marshall had ever assembled in a backcourt, which he thought would be a team strength. Instead, it became the biggest issue for the team. In trying to satisfy all of three of his point guards, Marshall in turn fully satisfied none, which led to Burton, Sherfield and Fernandes pursuing opportunities to be full-time point guards elsewhere.
“There was some inherent competition there,” Marshall said. “Maybe the sophomores thought they had done something when they made the run last year in the NIT and then all of a sudden these highly touted freshmen come in. It was very difficult to keep everyone happy.
“I didn’t do a very good job of managing the personalities. We basically had 13 starters. We had a lot of really, really good players. But you can’t play that many, so no one was happy.”
The departures have made Marshall reevaluate a lot of things, but the way that he coaches in practices and in games is not one. He countered that even with WSU’s problems this season, the team still won 23 games without playing in a postseason game. But he did say he has to do a better job of maintaining the culture within the program.
“I don’t think coaching side of it was the problem, it was not being able to manage the personalities and having too many guys for one role,” Marshall said. “We have been successful here in the past by recruiting young people that wanted to be a part of something special, and a part of something that’s maybe bigger than themselves. And that’s what I’ve got to get back to.
“I’ve got to get back to getting guys that want to come in and be coached and be developed on and off the court and win. That’s something maybe we’ve gotten away from a little bit and we’ve got to do a better job.”
Marshall has also seen the Twitter rumors that he is on the brink of accepting a head coaching job elsewhere, which is why the players are leaving.
“If I was leaving, I wouldn’t be grinding on these recruiting calls 24 hours a day,” Marshall said from in his home in east Wichita, which has become the de facto program headquarters with assistants watching film and calling recruits at all hours of the day. “We’re working hard to get our roster back. And I love the nucleus that we have coming back, I really do.”
This Ain't The MVC
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AAC Conference Basketball
