Commitment/Dement

[Hilltopper]

In everything I read about The Commitment, there were comments from Copeland and the rest about winning championships and getting to the NCAA Tournament in basketball. I've always thought Dement was a fine coach. But now I'm starting to wonder. If Rutgers can beat FOUR ranked teams in a season, as they now have, there's no reason SMU can't start beating someone good once in a while, is there? There's no reason Rutgers should be improving on a faster scale than SMU. We need to see marked improvement, and we need to see it now.

[Dement-ed]

I created my screen name because I'm a fan of Mike Dement. But I agree with Hilltopper, it's time to see major improvement, immediately. No more "wait til next year"

[DiamondM]

I posted this in response to a similar thread on the other board. I thought I would share it here.

First, I really like Dement. I continue to believe that he has greatly improved the program both from a recruiting standpoint and a success standpoint. However, while I continue to be optimistic about the future of this program with Dement, a little voice inside my head sometimes wonders if he can take the program further than it is now -- that is winning the vast majority of the ones we should, but never quite getting over the hump. Here's why:

1. At the last happy hour I spoke with Lisa Dark, one of the women's assistants, about this year's problems with the Lady Mustangs. She put it better than I could in saying that the problem with injuries even when the healthy players are quality players is that the players will not play at their best and improve if they can't be benched when they make bonehead decisions on the court. I wish Dement had been listening. One of my complaints the last several years is that he hasn't put selfish players on the bench to teach them a lesson. Now I think to some degree he has been hampered in his ability to do so because with our lack of depth at point, he could hardly afford to sacrifice a few wins to teaching Damon or Sasser a lesson by making them ride the pine for significant amounts of time. SMU fans, unfortunately will not exchange losses now for long term improvement and better play. But I think Dement HAS missed some real opportunities to discipline our best players in order to make them even better team players, harder workers, etc. It remains to be seen whether he will ever have the ability or desire to use that tool in developing the good players to make them great.

What this failure has resulted in is the very thing we all seem to be able to see, but never gets fixed -- selfish play on the court, lack of passing, assists, movement, etc.

2. This next reason is somewhat counterintuitive, since Dement does seem to be an intense coach, but maybe Dement is not competitive enough. I have spoken with another very knowledgeable fan and he actually suggested this to me. We were talking and I mentioned that at the happy hour when the maligning on this board was mentioned to Dement, he made the comment that he'd be happy to take the buyout if SMU offered. This shocked me, and while I passed it off as a joke, what shocked me is that he had made a similar comment several years ago. If these statements were not just snide retorts to criticism, it's as if he does not really feel invested in the program and taking it to the next level. This kind of "whatever" attitude will not take us to the next step of the NCAAs that we all want so much and think SMU can and should achieve.

3. I get the sense that Dement is not interested in marketing the program, that it's not his job. I would not have thought this given the benchmarks that Shumate and Cavan have set in recent times. By comparison, Dement is much better on media and community relations. But then you get a guy like Bennett who is committed to being a "face man" to generate excitement in the football program, and you start to wonder why Dement hasn't been able or willing to make the same kind of effort. Any SMU sports program is starting behind the 8 ball with respect to support from alumni and the community, and I think SMU, in particular, needs coaches who want to and can develop good relationships of this kind.

I think Dement still has several years of good graces in my book, but I hope that there will be improvement over the next year in these areas. If not, then ...