Post by jellybean on Jun 12, 2019 17:10:12 GMT -5
I apologize in advance. This is a VERY LONG post I took from the Dayton board. I thought it was interesting in a number of ways. I always like to read what our "partners" are saying. It might stir some conversation during this off season while we wait for our schedule to be announced.
06-07-2019, 03:34 PM
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Its difficult to compare scheduling from one school to another and make fair comparisons because every institution has arrived from different places over the last 30 years. Scheduling difficulty is deep-rooted in many things but while many schools struggle to schedule, the reasons why are oftentimes unique to them.
Dayton is no different. The struggle has not been a recent phenomenon that Wabler or Sullivan had to fix. This started three decades ago with the slide of UD basketball under the last couple of seasons under Donoher. Its the beginning of death-by-1000-cuts.
When we joined the MCC, things seemed to stabilize a bit while we maintained a relationship with Marquette and Notre Dame (in everything but MBB). But other than 1990 we were not overly competitive.
The Great Midwest is where UD really lost traction both competitively and in our long-standing relationships with schools we could count on for scheduling. While Cincinnati, Marquette, DePaul were alongside us, we atrophied and lost their respect -- so much so that when Conference-USA was formed they told us to beat it. That was an extremely humbling moment. Schools we had relationships with for decades and oftentimes played twice a season even as independents suddenly felt we were no longer their equals. And we werent.
At the same time, we started losing other long-standing relationships with quality non-conference schools. Louisville and Dayton were scheduling mainstays for decades. They dropped us and rarely played us again. Notre Dame, which was not a part of the GMW or CUSA but joined the Big East, had basically severed ties with us when we left the MCC. Marquette and DePaul and Cincinnati did likewise when they moved to C-USA. Even quality programs with few historical ties but some conference affiliation like Memphis wanted nothing to do with us ever again.
In a span of about 6-7 seasons we had broken every significant relationship with that we deemed to be peer schools. And because so many were regional opponents, it especially hurt because these were neighborhood schools no longer wishing to show their face down our cul de sac.
Meanwhile all of this strained some of the relationship with Xavier when we left the MCC for the GMW thinking we were too good for them. Within 5-6 years, UD MBB was on life support and Xavier was earning strong NCAA seeds.
The A10 was a lifeline. But what security the A10 provided us, it completely uprooted our traditional footprint forged over the prior 50 years. Dayton went from focusing on Great Lakes opponents to playing teams mostly on the east coast with few historical ties other than LaSalle and Duquesne which was not all that flattering. Fortunately Xavier came along with us and who knows how many levers they pulled to "do us a solid" and do our own bidding. But dont discount that without Xavier our best sales pitch would have been less effective because on our own we had nothing to sell but blue sky.
We entered the A10 on fumes. It took about 5 years for Purnell to get us back to respectability. But when we had some chances to make up bigger ground and earn back some of the street cred we had lost in the prior decade -- we came up short. We lost to Purdue by a basket and got trucked by a #13 seed in the NCAAs, keeping our NCAA victory drought ongoing.
By 2003 and 2004, the A10 was our lone identity. ND, Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette, Butler, had all but abandoned us forever. These were scheduling guarantees for decades prior. Ohio State no longer played schools in the state of Ohio. All that was left was Miami in the non-con and Xavier in the A10 as far as historical opponents. Scheduling-wise, all that was left were scraps of the bygone days.
Gregory took over and once again got our kneecaps taken out when we had a chance to make up some ground when we most needed it -- losing in 2OT to DePaul in the NCAAs. We finally broke through w/the West Virginia win in 2009 but at that point the two decades of postseason irrelevance were mostly irreversible. By this time the Big East had ballooned into a hybrid football/basketball megaconference where our former "peers" were now "peering" among themselves. While Dayton was absent, the bonds between Notre Dame, Marquette, DePaul, Cincinnati etc just got stronger. So it hurt twice. Meanwhile Butler managed to punch its way to a pair of national title games out of the Horizon -- forever elevating their brand that would pay dividends a few years later under re-alignment.
The same could be said of Creighton, who gained traction from habitual NCAA appearances (though not necessarily wins) and created nationally-respected brand names with guys like Kyle Korver, Nate Funk, and Doug McDermott. The Jays had become a consistent NCAA program -- they have made 12 NCAAs just since 1999. They were a safe reliable stock that paid a yearly dividend.
Not to be outdone, Dayton's performance within the A10 remained tepid at best despite being one of the favorites several times. Gregory failed to deliver consistent A10 success to at least give us the excuse that since we're cleaning up in our own league, its only natural we'd want to upgrade our conference -- we didn't have that ammunition either. After 25 years in the A10, our only tournament title remains the one we played on our home court -- a most unimpressive and embarrassing set of circumstances for a program like ours. Purnell, Gregory, and Archie all take some of the blame.
As the Big East re-aligned, Dayton had no face cards to play. It was 25 years of slow, methodical degradation: broken historical ties, broken geographic ties, poor league consistency, poor postseason opportunism, league realignments, the explosion of Power-5 football, new league-specific TV networks and contracts...
...and any single slip was not the underlying primary reason. It was an amalgam that in their totality proved to be damaging to scheduling both inside and outside a conference. No single piranha does you in -- its the school of piranha you can't fight off.
By 2014 or so, all historical ties to pretty much every school we grew up with were untouchable. The punch to the gut was when Xavier left us in the A10 and did to us what we did to Xavier in the MCC. Only Xavier was in a much stronger position to withstand our departure in 1993 whereas we were not when they left for the Big East. And it hurt even more because we wanted what Xavier had and didnt get it. In short, it was a bit of an inferiority complex that was wholly earned from 25 years of coming up short in far too many areas of mens basketball.
When the smoke cleared after the latest re-alignment, Dayton was left in an east coast league they should probably dominate but dont, and with a non-conference schedule comprised of new names because the entire old guard had used the last 25 years to improve their position in life and it no longer included the Flyers.
Its only because Dayton is a unique product of average to above average performance but exceptional support and amenities that we havent fallen further than we have. The support for the program has allowed us to continue to receive invitations to only Tier-1 exempt tournaments -- something rarely reserved for anyone outside the P-6. Archie certainly walked back SOME of the damage that had been done in the prior two decades with the NCAA success, but you can't erase all those missed opportunities, futility, and un-mended fences with 1 or 2 NCAA runs.
Why? Because the landscape of college basketball has not been static over those 25 years. Its a completely different place now. While Dayton MBB has changed, everybody and everything else around us has changed too. Unfortunately those changes were at a pace we could not keep up with for all the reasons I just cited and eventually it catches up to you.
The scheduling problem has only been compounded by the fact that as we pine for a more balanced and competitive A10 schedule, it forces us to place more emphasis on the non-league schedule -- at a time when the ability to do so is at an all-time low. We need other schools from other leagues more than ever, and yet they need us less than ever. That's the landscape we now find ourselves in.
No other school in the country has these very complicated and deep and numerous reasons that mirror Dayton's current predicament. Other schools have scheduling issues too, but they reached the same place from a different boat. Dayton used to be one of the four Great Independents. Only three other schools out of 350+ can claim that title. Yet in 2019, three of those other four did enough (or just enough) at the right time and place to ensure they were in a better position today. And some of UD's current situation is just bad luck. DePaul was strong when GMW and CUSA were formed but quickly tailed off into obscurity. But they did just enough to gain Big East acceptance and having those relationships for over a decade kept them close enough to the teams that mattered to stick around when the Big East was re-fashioned.
You cant look at these scheduling difficulties in a vacuum and explain them away with easy excuses. Its deep-rooted and the result of countless small but meaningful realities that have tied our hands. Other schools have their hands tied too, but everybody got there in a different way. And everyone has their hands tied with different knots to try to escape. What works for one school doesnt necessarily mean it is viable for another. Just way too many variables from 30 years of changing winds.
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06-07-2019, 03:34 PM
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Chris R Chris R is offline
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Its difficult to compare scheduling from one school to another and make fair comparisons because every institution has arrived from different places over the last 30 years. Scheduling difficulty is deep-rooted in many things but while many schools struggle to schedule, the reasons why are oftentimes unique to them.
Dayton is no different. The struggle has not been a recent phenomenon that Wabler or Sullivan had to fix. This started three decades ago with the slide of UD basketball under the last couple of seasons under Donoher. Its the beginning of death-by-1000-cuts.
When we joined the MCC, things seemed to stabilize a bit while we maintained a relationship with Marquette and Notre Dame (in everything but MBB). But other than 1990 we were not overly competitive.
The Great Midwest is where UD really lost traction both competitively and in our long-standing relationships with schools we could count on for scheduling. While Cincinnati, Marquette, DePaul were alongside us, we atrophied and lost their respect -- so much so that when Conference-USA was formed they told us to beat it. That was an extremely humbling moment. Schools we had relationships with for decades and oftentimes played twice a season even as independents suddenly felt we were no longer their equals. And we werent.
At the same time, we started losing other long-standing relationships with quality non-conference schools. Louisville and Dayton were scheduling mainstays for decades. They dropped us and rarely played us again. Notre Dame, which was not a part of the GMW or CUSA but joined the Big East, had basically severed ties with us when we left the MCC. Marquette and DePaul and Cincinnati did likewise when they moved to C-USA. Even quality programs with few historical ties but some conference affiliation like Memphis wanted nothing to do with us ever again.
In a span of about 6-7 seasons we had broken every significant relationship with that we deemed to be peer schools. And because so many were regional opponents, it especially hurt because these were neighborhood schools no longer wishing to show their face down our cul de sac.
Meanwhile all of this strained some of the relationship with Xavier when we left the MCC for the GMW thinking we were too good for them. Within 5-6 years, UD MBB was on life support and Xavier was earning strong NCAA seeds.
The A10 was a lifeline. But what security the A10 provided us, it completely uprooted our traditional footprint forged over the prior 50 years. Dayton went from focusing on Great Lakes opponents to playing teams mostly on the east coast with few historical ties other than LaSalle and Duquesne which was not all that flattering. Fortunately Xavier came along with us and who knows how many levers they pulled to "do us a solid" and do our own bidding. But dont discount that without Xavier our best sales pitch would have been less effective because on our own we had nothing to sell but blue sky.
We entered the A10 on fumes. It took about 5 years for Purnell to get us back to respectability. But when we had some chances to make up bigger ground and earn back some of the street cred we had lost in the prior decade -- we came up short. We lost to Purdue by a basket and got trucked by a #13 seed in the NCAAs, keeping our NCAA victory drought ongoing.
By 2003 and 2004, the A10 was our lone identity. ND, Cincinnati, Louisville, Marquette, Butler, had all but abandoned us forever. These were scheduling guarantees for decades prior. Ohio State no longer played schools in the state of Ohio. All that was left was Miami in the non-con and Xavier in the A10 as far as historical opponents. Scheduling-wise, all that was left were scraps of the bygone days.
Gregory took over and once again got our kneecaps taken out when we had a chance to make up some ground when we most needed it -- losing in 2OT to DePaul in the NCAAs. We finally broke through w/the West Virginia win in 2009 but at that point the two decades of postseason irrelevance were mostly irreversible. By this time the Big East had ballooned into a hybrid football/basketball megaconference where our former "peers" were now "peering" among themselves. While Dayton was absent, the bonds between Notre Dame, Marquette, DePaul, Cincinnati etc just got stronger. So it hurt twice. Meanwhile Butler managed to punch its way to a pair of national title games out of the Horizon -- forever elevating their brand that would pay dividends a few years later under re-alignment.
The same could be said of Creighton, who gained traction from habitual NCAA appearances (though not necessarily wins) and created nationally-respected brand names with guys like Kyle Korver, Nate Funk, and Doug McDermott. The Jays had become a consistent NCAA program -- they have made 12 NCAAs just since 1999. They were a safe reliable stock that paid a yearly dividend.
Not to be outdone, Dayton's performance within the A10 remained tepid at best despite being one of the favorites several times. Gregory failed to deliver consistent A10 success to at least give us the excuse that since we're cleaning up in our own league, its only natural we'd want to upgrade our conference -- we didn't have that ammunition either. After 25 years in the A10, our only tournament title remains the one we played on our home court -- a most unimpressive and embarrassing set of circumstances for a program like ours. Purnell, Gregory, and Archie all take some of the blame.
As the Big East re-aligned, Dayton had no face cards to play. It was 25 years of slow, methodical degradation: broken historical ties, broken geographic ties, poor league consistency, poor postseason opportunism, league realignments, the explosion of Power-5 football, new league-specific TV networks and contracts...
...and any single slip was not the underlying primary reason. It was an amalgam that in their totality proved to be damaging to scheduling both inside and outside a conference. No single piranha does you in -- its the school of piranha you can't fight off.
By 2014 or so, all historical ties to pretty much every school we grew up with were untouchable. The punch to the gut was when Xavier left us in the A10 and did to us what we did to Xavier in the MCC. Only Xavier was in a much stronger position to withstand our departure in 1993 whereas we were not when they left for the Big East. And it hurt even more because we wanted what Xavier had and didnt get it. In short, it was a bit of an inferiority complex that was wholly earned from 25 years of coming up short in far too many areas of mens basketball.
When the smoke cleared after the latest re-alignment, Dayton was left in an east coast league they should probably dominate but dont, and with a non-conference schedule comprised of new names because the entire old guard had used the last 25 years to improve their position in life and it no longer included the Flyers.
Its only because Dayton is a unique product of average to above average performance but exceptional support and amenities that we havent fallen further than we have. The support for the program has allowed us to continue to receive invitations to only Tier-1 exempt tournaments -- something rarely reserved for anyone outside the P-6. Archie certainly walked back SOME of the damage that had been done in the prior two decades with the NCAA success, but you can't erase all those missed opportunities, futility, and un-mended fences with 1 or 2 NCAA runs.
Why? Because the landscape of college basketball has not been static over those 25 years. Its a completely different place now. While Dayton MBB has changed, everybody and everything else around us has changed too. Unfortunately those changes were at a pace we could not keep up with for all the reasons I just cited and eventually it catches up to you.
The scheduling problem has only been compounded by the fact that as we pine for a more balanced and competitive A10 schedule, it forces us to place more emphasis on the non-league schedule -- at a time when the ability to do so is at an all-time low. We need other schools from other leagues more than ever, and yet they need us less than ever. That's the landscape we now find ourselves in.
No other school in the country has these very complicated and deep and numerous reasons that mirror Dayton's current predicament. Other schools have scheduling issues too, but they reached the same place from a different boat. Dayton used to be one of the four Great Independents. Only three other schools out of 350+ can claim that title. Yet in 2019, three of those other four did enough (or just enough) at the right time and place to ensure they were in a better position today. And some of UD's current situation is just bad luck. DePaul was strong when GMW and CUSA were formed but quickly tailed off into obscurity. But they did just enough to gain Big East acceptance and having those relationships for over a decade kept them close enough to the teams that mattered to stick around when the Big East was re-fashioned.
You cant look at these scheduling difficulties in a vacuum and explain them away with easy excuses. Its deep-rooted and the result of countless small but meaningful realities that have tied our hands. Other schools have their hands tied too, but everybody got there in a different way. And everyone has their hands tied with different knots to try to escape. What works for one school doesnt necessarily mean it is viable for another. Just way too many variables from 30 years of changing winds.
__________________
C. M. Rieman | Publisher | 937.361.4630 | Get the latest here:
