Ernie Zeigler Q&A — Part 1

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Sports Editor Aaron McMann and Senior Reporter Andrew Stover sat down with Central Michigan men’s basketball head coach Ernie Zeigler earlier this week to talk about last season, the status of the program, what needs to be happen next season and much more. Here is Part 1 — Part 2 will appear in Monday’s edition of CM Life:

Aaron McMann: We’re about three weeks removed from the end of the season. Looking back at it, how would you sum up the season?
Ernie Zeigler: “It’s really obvious our season was a disappointment and that falls, first and foremost, on my shoulders. We had a tough start with how the cards were laid for us, in terms of having to play nine of those first 10 away from home.

“When you look back at it, having so many newcomers and four seniors who were all being asked to take on different levels of responsibility or new roles, the snake-bitten mindset that we end up having after those first seven, eight games — just being so close, really hampered our ability to be able to be more successful, particularly in the non-conference. That really stagnated any real momentum we could have had going into conference play. At the end of the day, players win games and coaches lose games. I’m the one who’s responsible. I won’t run from that, in terms of how our season played out, but at the same time we’re going to keep pushing and working to get this thing right.”

AM: Before the start of the season, there was a lot of hype around the program, especially with the addition of Trey. Do you feel like there was a lot of pressure from that?
EZ: “No, I don’t. I don’t feel any different pressure than from Year 1. The (goal) is to turn this program into a winning program that sustains some continuity with winning. Quite obviously that hasn’t happened yet. That pressure was here when I took the job, understanding the lay of the land in terms of the history of this program. It’s something that we’ve laid some foundation from the level of competitiveness, we want expectations. That’s not something that’s been synonymous with our basketball program, particularly since we’ve become a member of the Mid-American Conference.”

Andrew Stover: Is there anything you have changed or would change to try and find that winning continuity, or do you just want to keep marching along?
EZ: “I think we have the nucleus to establish that winning continuity. You’re always going to tweak things. I’m always going to analyze myself more so than any other person in the aspect of our program here over the past three weeks. We’re going to continue to evolve and change and do things to right ourselves, and it’s start with me first and foremost. The important thing for us is that we got to continue to be positive. We have some of the right pieces of the puzzle in place on campus right now, and we got to add a few others to sure up our deficient areas that were quite obvious during the season.”

AM: One of the things you talked about at the beginning of the season was to implement more a fast-paced, up-tempo offense. While it showed up in a few games late, it never seemed to get off the ground. Why was that?
EZ: “We struggled with understanding how to push the ball, particularly early on in non-conference play. It was definitely a point of emphasis, but because the learning curve was so slow – and again that falls back on my shoulders because we have to pick that up quicker. For this past year’s team, that was the only we could hide our deficiencies, in terms of not having a knock-down shooter and not having a consistent low-post threat. So we were shackled, and again that falls back on me probably from some past recruiting mistakes and/or bad evaluations in terms of not having more versatile-type scorers.

“With the transition, it’s all we’ve talked about since starting workouts. It’s got to be something that we’re going to grasp, and I think our younger kids are starting to get it. Hopefully it’s going to be something that’s going to be a definite plan of attack for us as we continue to move forward.”

AS: Going off past recruiting past mistakes and finding versatile scorers, what about recruiting? What have you tweaked in the recruiting process yourself and your coaching staff to try and find the right pieces and players?
EZ: “We know that Michigan is the main focus of our recruiting. But with that said, the change or tweak is that if we can’t get who we want, we’re not going to settle just to say we got a Michigan kid. Michigan is a very fertile area to recruit, and we’ve been very fortunate. Our recruiting class last year was very much dominated by local kids, and they’re going to be the focus of our program (VanArendonk, Voss and Trey). This year, in our recruiting class, we have one Michigan kid (Jorddan Myrick) who’s probably one of the more higher-ranked kids in the state of Michigan at his position.

“For us, in the past we took some kids that may not have been at the top-ranked in their position. We took them because we wanted to go with a Detroit kid or Flint kid just because. At the end of the day, it wasn’t the right fit and evaluation. It wasn’t the right balance. Because of the support, I’m very fortunate to work for the best president in the conference and the best AD. Because of their support and being able to do some things differently in my last contract, we were able to play a third guarantee game, which allows us to take that money and recruit nationally. We have to do things more creatively to be able to compete from a recruiting standpoint with the teams in the top of our conference that have more lucrative resources than we have at our disposal.”

AM: Assess Trey’s year. There seemed to be times where he’d lift the team up, and others where he struggled.
EZ: “There’s no question that Trey can play better. All in all, he had an OK year. But I will say when you compare his year to other freshman nationally, it looks like he had a good year, despite the fact that he didn’t shoot the ball as well as he needs to be able to from the field and particularly from the foul line. He’s a kid who ended up being in the Top 10 in every statistical category in conference play except assists (and he was in the Top 15), and in doing so he was the fourth leading freshman scorer in the country.

“When people looked at it, I think people expected him to come in and dominate the MAC. There’s only one freshman in the country that dominated his conference, and that was Jared Sullinger. We’re talking about the No. 1 player in the country. At the end of the day, what other freshman dominated his conference? In fairness to him, and that’s where it falls on me, I didn’t do a good enough job of informing and/or educating people prior to. And that’s my fault, and I take the blame for it. Maybe people would have not listened to me anyway, but I should have been constantly downplaying that it was going to be difficult for him to dominate our conference.

“He had his games where he looked dominant, but he had his games where he looked just like any other freshman. That’s where he’s going to have to grow. I think he’s already doing a heck of a job – he’s gained 10 pound – to get better. I think he had an OK year, and in my opinion he was the best freshman in our conference.”

AM: With Amir Rashid’s departure, were you surprised a senior would leave midway through the season?
EZ: “I was definitely surprised he chose to leave. It was extremely unfortunate. It was a tough time for us as a team because it was right around the time where the challenge that the team received from me was: how are we going to bond together and stay together to absorb losing Jalin at that time? We lost Jalin and won the game here against Northern Illinois without him and it was a juncture where we were 2-2 in conference play and were going on the road to play a game against an in-state rival that was more than winnable.

“Unfortunately, some things occurred prior to the game and after the game that definitely affected his mindset to the point where he said ‘coach, I just want to focus on graduating.’ I respected that. He was just playing with the guys in the open gym over the weekend. He’s very much still around, and I respect that. That’s how he and I left it. Without question, I was surprised that was the route he chose to take. But we respected it and support him and we’ll continue to support him.”

AM: On his decision to leave, was it a disagreement with you or was it a team matter?
EZ: “His decision to leave was a culmination of what occurred, and I’m not going to call out what happened, prior to the game and what occurred after the game. Unfortunately, it just a very unfortunate chain of events that ended up resulting in the decision he made.”

AS: One of the big things you’ve harped on is finding some leadership. Looking forward, who do you look to supply that leadership?
EZ: “It remains to be seen. One of the things, particularly in Year 2, I tried to do was make somebody a leader and that didn’t work. We’re not going to repeat that same mistake. It’s going to be a trial by error year, which started last week when the group came together to lift. Who’s going to emerge as that leader? If it’s Trey, it’s Trey. If it’s Finis Craddock, Derek Jackson … whomever it is, it is.

“If it’s not, then it falls on my shoulders to try to be not only the leader on the sideline, but lead better on the floor. That’s probably one of the things I failed at this year, because as a coach you want to have someone, and most of the time it’s your point guard in a coach-player relationship, that you want to be an extension of you on the floor. Any coach worth a salt will attest to that.

“Unfortunately for us, because we struggled so much with our own confidence, we had four or five different guys who struggled with the pressure of evolving into a new role. Seven of our top nine guys shot under 40 percent from the field. Even our best two scorers shot 39 percent and 38 percent. We had guys who were starting shooting 27 percent and 23 percent from 3. … Sometimes I think it’s easy for us to ask someone to step up, but at the same time you have to take a step back and look at some of these guys. At the end of the day, God bless them – they gave their all – they weren’t ready for that responsibility. It’s going to be up to me to do a better job of lessening that pressure for this next group of kids. Hopefully having more balance to our roster so that it’s not all on two guys or three guys.”

AS: You mentioned a player-coach relationship with your point guard. With Amir, was there a disconnect that maybe led to his decision to leave?
EZ: “It was more an isolated thing. If there was, I did a poor job of recognizing that there was a disconnect. For us, we had a guy who was coming into a new role, who had been a backup and had to be the lead guy there and get all the pressure that comes along with that. In Amir’s defense, he struggled with chronic knee pain. To start the season, in the Hawaii game he didn’t play. A lot of thing that come into play that we overlook, and there were times I had to really nurture and handle him with kid’s gloves in terms of how many days he could practice.

“He gave us everything he had and battled through the knee surgery that forced him to miss a string games of his first year here. It definitely didn’t allow him to have the season that he and I both hoped he would have been able to have. That came to a head and he said he just wanted to focus on graduating.”