Articles on Assistant Coaches
 

Some of these may have been posted before, I don't recall.

I'll start with today's on Ricardo Greer
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/spo...ef=cbTopWidget

Darren Hertz
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/spo...nKNTfHAMNSWrI/
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/spo...Jm4a6HdJpTzEJ/

James Kane
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/spo...p8Ud9G9OIFy7K/

Anthony Solomon
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/spo...tlSeja3lQCNDN/

Great job by Jablonski writing these articles.

I thought the other day that this staff includes a former head coach (and a top assistant at both Georgetown and Norte Dame), three members from the staff at U of F that won multiple national championships, and a former long time player in Europe. To say this is not a quality staff is to look at the glass well below half full.

While I think AM's staff did a great job, the pedigree of this staff, at inception, is much stronger than AM's staff when assembled.

Maybe this is wishful thinking but it would be great for Greer to use his European connections to get some quality players from across the pond over the next few years.

Great recruiters
 

Recruiting high caliber talent is the key to success in college basketball and I've seen several comments on this board about how our new assistants are great recruiters. I hope these comments are correct but is there data somewhere that supports this? Were they the principal recruiter for very many 4-star players that came to their respective schools? Did their respective schools have top 10 or top 20 recruiting classes that they helped recruit? How does one find this sort of data?

Google is your friend. Grant had the #6 class in 2014 and several others in the top 25. These guys are big time recruiters. Solomon was top recruiter at ND. Kane recruited the best classes in Murray St history.

Andy Farrell
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/spo...3wxQ1XRs5c24I/
Devin Davis
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/spo...x6xwm8BK9hbmL/

Interesting Davis' position required 5 years pro experience. (He has 14.). That has to be a straight play to appeal to recruits looking to play pro and shows you don't have to go NBA to have a pro career.

Kane I don't think it's fair to judge his success on signing elite players at Murray. Getting a four star prospect or top 20 class in the Ohio Valley Conference is virtually unheard of

Murray seems like they've done a good job of evaluating under the radar talent. I think he was on the staff of Murray when they signed Cameron Payne who ended up being a 1st round pick of the Thunder

My friend Google
 

I consulted my friend Google and found the ff;
Notre Dame BB Recruiting (while Solomon was one of their top recruiters)
2014 #56 3 3-star recruits
2015 #66 2 4-star recruits, 1 3-star
2016 #42 2 4-star & 2 3-star
2017 #99 1 4-star
Pretty decent caliber classes but no top 50 for one of the big name programs.

Murray State (while Kane was one of their top recruiters)
2016 #111 1 3-star recruit
2017 #84 2 3-star recruits
Pretty decent and showing definite improvement from his first to last year

Illinois (while Herta was recruiting for them)
2016 #101 1 3-star recruit
2017 #31 2 4-star & 1 3-star
Impressive improvement

So, I agree the Google data shows these three assistants look to be pretty good recruiters. Great? I'll defer that opinion till they've got two classes under their belts, but the prospects are looking up.

Solomon was at Georgetown last year, which could explain the major decline in recruiting for ND.

Strength and Conditioning Coach
http://www.mydaytondailynews.com/spo...v5BkVKQRxTbTI/

He commented that three of the five Freshmen are here. I think the second summer session starts next Monday? We should know VERY soon about Svboda. There is no reason to doubt he will not be here, but it will be good to have him here soon!

Hoopdirt write-up about the additions of Andy Farrell, Devin Davis, and Casey Cathrall to the coaching staff.


https://hoopdirt.com/dayton-finalize...ketball-staff/:

New University of Dayton men’s basketball coach Anthony Grant has completed coaching staff with the addition of three new members – Andy Farrell, Devin Davis, and Casey Cathrall.

Casey Cathrall reading some of this articles seems like a great hire and a major improvement over what the prior strength regime was doing.

Moving from machines under Archie to Olympic/compound movements is great. Rollo I'm sure can weight in on this topic better than me but it seems that compound movements are the accepted wisdom of the strength community

Cathrall=Grandslam by Coach Grant

Dayton MBB tweeted a short workout video today.
https://twitter.com/DaytonMBB/status/891046600189112320

Outstanding video...two things stood out to me. First, it was nice to see Sam Miller looking more athletic than last year. Also, the vertical jump routine was absolutely awesome. I like what I see here, folks.

Kind of crazy to think that explosiveness and the use of free weights over stationary machines were not stressed with the last athletic training staff. Add in the fact that TommyGola is surprised to see box jumping exercises begs the question- what the hell have we been doing this whole time? Those were standard stress points for my HIGH SCHOOL team.. Regardless, I'm happy with what Cathrall is doing. Looking to see MAJOR improvements in player physique.
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Machines are horrible. Unnatural motions on many of them, too isolated. A great workout will use compound movements and utilize your core as well as your other muscle groups. Functional strength cannot be overstated.

Didn't like the Grant hire but I love all of the assistant hires so far and especially the work with the support staff/grad assistants

Is it really the coaching?
 

I've heard on this board that Coach Grant cannot manage in-game, use timeouts effectively, design a simple offensive play, make adjustments at the half and uses substitution patterns that don't make sense. Did I forget anything? I'm not here to advocate for Coach Grant necessarily- rather courtesy of DaytonFlyers.com- thought I'd briefly remind everyone of the backgrounds of our coaches:

Coach Grant- "Grant was most recently on the coaching staff of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder, working with athletes such as Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook. He spent the last two seasons on Billy Donovan's staff after nine seasons as head coach at Alabama and VCU and 13 seasons as a Division I assistant coach.

In nine seasons as a head coach, Grant took his teams to three NCAA tournament appearances and six postseason tournament berths. He has a career record of 193-110 (.637). Prior to becoming a head coach, Grant spent 13 years as a respected Division I assistant coach. The last 10 years were at the University of Florida (1996-2006) where he served under Donovan. Grant helped lead the Gators to their first national title in 2006, and Florida won the national title again in 2007 with players he recruited and developed".

Anthony Solomon- "Solomon’s 29-year college coaching career also includes stops at Virginia (his alma mater), Notre Dame (twice), Clemson and Georgetown. He then coached at Bowling Green (1989-92), Manhattan (1992-93), Richmond (1993-94) and Virginia (1994-98). He then took an administrative position at Clemson as Assistant Athletic Director for Basketball Operations for two seasons before returning to the court as an assistant at Notre Dame (2000-03)".

James Kane- primarily a tech guy but also a seasoned recruiter and developer of talent, less X's and O's.

Ricardo Greer- primarily a player development guy, less X's and O's.

Darren Hertz- again less X's and O's and more technical, running the basketball operations.

So it seems basketball tactics are largely the domain of Coaches Grant & Solomon. Together they have 50 seasons of coaching experience at the D1 level.

I am not going to buy into the growing criticisms and will continue to give these coaches the benefit of any doubt. Just using only the Jordan Pierce lack of playing time/no red shirt topic as an example where something unknown behind the scenes later fully explained coaching behavior that was widely criticized.

The new coaching team deserves an opportunity to prove themselves. Can they really all be as incompetent as some here suggest? The only objective & honest answer is No. Other things are at play.

If experience made you good I'd be a scratch golfer

Perhaps not, but you'd be able to find the first tee- something that many here don't believe Coach can do.

Both were also fired from their previous head coaching gigs.

I hear what you are saying and for 90% of it I agree. However, this lays down the argument that all the issues are player related. Which in one way or another leads to questions about almost every players ability to either 1)play within a team or 2) develop as a player. Those freshmen are almost sophomores experience wise.

Dysfunction is usually a 'system fault' all pieces not operating as designed. Although some pieces can be the major contributing factor, other pieces need to take action to redesign the system. I haven't seen a reason (yet) to believe that redesign is on-going.

All the same pieces coming back next year (+ one new) with no changes otherwise have yet to make me feel optimistic for next year. However I will hold some hope that things do indeed improve and I am pleasantly thrilled with next years season! :)

I've been wondering this as well. i had and think most of us had a good feel for the Assistants under Archie.

I know who two of these guys are here from knowing my hoops. But ****ed if i have a feel or a positive feel for what they are capable of and how they help the X's and O's here. Grant can't do it all.

Can anyone describe courtside demeanor or what you see during game, out of our Assistants?

Steve Prohm is looking for a new basketball assistant.

The widely anticipated Neill Berry-to-Texas move became reality Thursday, and now the focus shifts to his replacement.

Prohm’s history leans toward basketball folks he knows — staffer William Small was a Prohm assistant at Murray State, and Berry was a Southeastern Louisiana player when Prohm was an assistant at the school.

Prohm could promote Micah Byars from director of operations. He could hire James Kane, a former Murray State assistant and currently an assistant at Dayton. That's a name I'd remember.

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/st...-12/633973002/

Money talks, and TX has plenty of it. We only talk about head coach pay, but you have to believe that the TX, KY, Dukes and KS of the world pay their assistants more.

Potentially not good

Randy Peterson @RandyPete
15m15 minutes ago
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Iowa State's Steve Prohm confirms Dayton's James Kane on list of assistant coaching candidates https://dmreg.co/2LV8DZM via @DMRegister

Iowa State's Steve Prohm confirms Dayton's James Kane on list of assistant coaching candidates

Prohm’s history is to hire someone with whom he has ties. Dayton's James Kane, a former Prohm assistant, is high on Iowa State's list.

“He’s one I will consider,” Prohm said Monday. “There’s a process we have to go through, first.”

https://www.desmoinesregister.com/st...ion/670272002/

This is not good

Context would be helpful. Not good because of who he might have been recuiting? Not good because he's our best bench coach? Not good because??? Assistant coaches are going to come and go. They want promotions just like anyone else, either to a higher up program or a higher coaching title. But I am curious to know why you feel this is not good, outside of just normal turnover that can be disruptive.

If this guy is a great assistant, offer him the money to stay.

He's the best recruiter on the staff. He was the lead guy on Jalen Crutcher and was the guy with the connections in the Southeast. Others might know better but I believe he's been the lead guy on all the big name games in the South for 2019.

I think beyond money if he wants to be a head coach he's got a better shot of getting there being an assistant in the Big 12 vs the Atlantic 10

As a fan of the team he left to go to Dayton I hope for your sake you are able to keep Coach Kane. If I was Murray State's AD and we needed a head coach, the search would last just long enough for me to dial Kane's number. In his time at Murray he recruited most of the top players that we signed and from what I can tell he is off to a good start with you guys.
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