Among the three of them, Seth Greenberg, Fran Fraschilla and Dan Dakich have more than 40 years of head-coaching experience at the Division I level. Each week they get together to discuss the hottest topics in college basketball.
1. The American produced a national champion in 2014, but it looks as though the league would be lucky to have three NCAA tournament teams this season. What has gone wrong with the conference?
Greenberg: Let's face it, this league is in transition. It has potential, and you have some schools -- Cincinnati, Memphis, UConn -- with rich traditions, and then you have emerging programs. The problem is the league is spread out all over the place, and there's a varied commitment to being successful. That's a league where the brand name teams would all like to be in another league. I don't want to speak out of turn, but if Memphis or UConn or Cincinnati had a chance to go to the ACC or Big 12 or Big Ten, they would.
Having said that, you can have a good program in that league. Cincinnati has been so consistent. Connecticut has won national championships. You've got places that have built facilities. There's a world-class coach at Houston in Kelvin Sampson. If those schools in metropolitan areas are able to attract players, they could have very good teams.
Dakich: SMU's postseason ban kills this league from a national perspective because I believe the Mustangs have a team capable of making a long run in the tournament. The others are good, solid teams that continue to knock one another off. Combine that with incredibly weak nonconference schedules from the middle teams, and you have disappointment come Selection Sunday. I still believe this to be a really good league, but without SMU, this postseason will be tough for its teams.
Fraschilla: The first thing that has gone wrong with the American is that its best team, SMU, is ineligible for the NCAA tournament. The other thing is, while the league has no elite teams besides the Mustangs, there is more balance in that league than last year. The improvement of Houston under Kelvin Sampson, for example, makes a game with the Cougars a tricky proposition. I think Cincinnati, Connecticut and Temple are all in position to gain NCAA bids depending on how they finish down the stretch and as long as they don't cannibalize each other along the way.
2. Oregon has won six straight games, which is a tall order in this season's Pac-12. What makes the Ducks so good?
Dakich: It starts with a tremendous coach. Dana Altman has won at every place he has been. He's a lot like Oklahoma's Lon Krueger in that he wins, he adapts and he is unrecognizable to the general public. Over the years, Altman has adapted his style to fit his personnel. This year's crew plays fast, really fast. During their six-game win streak the Ducks are averaging more than 83 points per game. Remember, this is league play where scouting and coaching familiarity is supposed to hamper offensive teams. Not this group. This is the best scoring stretch of their season, which tells me the coach and players are connected and continuing to improve. Watch out for the Ducks during tourney time.
Fraschilla: I love Oregon as a dark horse Final Four team because the Ducks have seven or eight very good players and a proven winner in Altman. Pac-12 Player of the Year candidate Dillon Brooks played with the Canadian national team last summer and benefitted greatly. The backcourt with Casey Benson and Tyler Dorsey is solid. Benson is a no-mistake point guard. And I love the high-energy and athleticism of JUCO transfer Chris Boucher. Altman, by the way, started his Division I coaching career as an assistant coach at Kansas State under Lon Kruger.
Greenberg: Oregon is a complete team. Brooks and Dorsey are big, athletic wings. Boucher can protect the rim. Benson doesn't turn it over. They can play at more than one speed. The Ducks turn you over and get easy baskets. Dwayne Benjamin and Elgin Cook have been there, and they understand the system. This is a very good basketball team. They're athletic, they're versatile, they're long, they attack. They're just really good.
3. There are four teams in the power leagues without a conference victory: Boston College, St. John's, Minnesota and Rutgers. What's the challenge like for those coaches as they try to finish out a season like this?
Fraschilla: Having a winless conference record is a problem. But it's even a worse problem if you're in the second or third year of rebuilding. In St. John's case, Chris Mullin has an NBA expansion franchise-situation because they are starting from square one, but he has an excellent recruiting class coming in along with solid newcomers who are getting a baptism by fire in the Big East. Boston College is also playing a group of very young players, so there is hope. For Minnesota and Rutgers, on the other hand, it's about not losing the confidence of your fan base and administration before you can show progress.
Dakich: There's nothing easy about this. The major challenges are obvious.
Win a dang game. Nobody ever wants to be that team, the winless team that is constantly brought up year after year as the last team to go winless. In a sick, weird way, being winless may keep them more motivated than having, say, one or two wins. Both are hopeless, but it seems like pride would factor in more fiercely if you're winless.
You have to keep the guys who you feel you can win while being interested in and hopeful for the future. Kids transfer at record rates lately, and as you are going through an especially bad year, complaining and doubting has already crept in. Containing it and doing whatever you can as a coach to instill hope is massively important.
Recruit your brains off!
Greenberg: You have to put Richard Pitino and Eddie Jordan in one group, and then you have to put Eddie Jordan and Chris Mullin in a second group. When you're in Year 3, it's not an ideal situation, to say the least. They need to continue to sell their vision on where they are and where they're going in the process. You're not defining success by wins and losses but by progress, player development, playing hard. You almost have to create "mini-wins" within a game. You have to learn to lose before you learn to win. You have to be consistent with your message and then recruit, recruit, recruit.
It's hard to recruit in Year 3 than it is in Year 1 or 2. When you're going into Year 4, recruits want to know about the university's commitment to a coach. That coach might have total commitment from the school, but other coaches will use that lack of progress against them.
The kids in your program have to help you recruit. Player development during the time when you're not winning is so important. You have to stay on the same page as your team while you're recruiting players who are better than them. The challenge is to balance your roster while trying to win games. You've got to build a program, not a team. Once you have it built, you're not starting over every year.