Grant’s program moves forward in uncertain times with a roster being rebuilt through the transfer portal. The vibe around the Flyers, judging by the comment of fans on social media, is not good. Dayton fans are hungry to see their team in the NCAA tournament after a six-year absence — it would be three if not for the pandemic — and don’t know what to expect next season.
Sullivan touched on all that and a variety of topics in a 31-minute interview with the Dayton Daily News on Thursday.
Q: When you look back at last season, how do you evaluate it?
A: It was a challenging and disappointing season relative to what we expected and the standards we set. We didn’t get it done, and close doesn’t count. Close didn’t count last year. It doesn’t count this year. It’s a results business. There’s no way around it. Fans or anyone here, nobody wants to hear about hardship, injuries, good intentions. It’s about results. So the first thing we do is look in the mirror and not just blame external conditions. We evaluate ourselves constantly win or lose, by the way — every facet of our program — to make sure that we’re giving ourselves the best chance to meet our expectations and our standards. We perpetually look for improvement. There’s no finish line in this business, right? You’ve never arrived. You’ve never won enough to do that.
Now, I think that being said, as part of that evaluation that we do throughout the year and all the time, we confront brutal reality, and the brutal reality was that we were decimated with injuries. I’ll never say that’s the only component because we don’t believe in just looking at external circumstances. The first thing we do is look at ourselves. But we never were able to find the consistency we needed with our roster. I think it’s possible to be disappointed but also stand behind how some of our players fought through exceptional adversity. I think our our top returning guards missed a combined 35 games, and I think in 22 games we played without at least one of them. I may not have the number exactly correct, but you can’t ignore that.
But, at the end of the day, we don’t put our faith in luck. We try to put our faith in great decisions, great players, discipline, self evaluation, self improvement. You can’t ignore the injuries. But you also never want to move away from the standard. The standard is the standard. In some years, there’s more headwinds than others. Clearly, it was a challenging year. I saw the tears. I saw the heartache of the injured players, what some of them played through. I think some of that came out toward the end of the season when they announced the medical procedures that they were going to have. ... I stand with them. It’s disappointing that it happened. And it’s disappointing we didn’t achieve what we wanted to, but at the same time, I stand for those guys who could have shut it down and they tried to give us a chance. I have a lot of a lot of respect for them for doing that.
Q: Take us back to the decision not to pursue an invitation to the NIT because of those injuries.
A: There was nothing more nefarious about that than the totality of the circumstances and the health of our roster. There really was no other storyline. At that time, I was not able to get into the medical report because we choose to let families do that and give the OK for that. It was an emotional, heart-shattering postgame. I think the first reaction was to get up off the mat and look for the next fight. We had to take an appropriate time there to evaluate, get the doctors together and give an honest assessment of our condition. The players were consulted, the staff, the medical team. We just felt that it was appropriate to shift the immediate focus to healing and recovery, and it was in the best interest of what was necessary at that time. A lot of a lot of guys fought through stuff. They could have thrown in the towel earlier.
Q: When you look back at the last six years with coach Grant, how do you evaluate the job he’s done?
A: I think as high of coach Grant as I always have. ... I believe in our coach. I believe in our coaching staff. We’ll get back on the saddle. We’ve had the highest of highs, and the pandemic year was what it was. It happened. The season after that, what we call the no-fan season or whatever, was the Twilight Zone. And then these last few years, we’ve been close but close didn’t get it. We were the first team out (of the NCAA tournament) in 2022, and we played for a A-10 championship (in 2023) but didn’t get there. We’ve got to get there, and that’s just what we’re focused on doing.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Q: There were rumors that Grant was considering retirement. Was there any truth to that as far as you know?
A: Everyone shared that with me. I’m not being evasive. I understand the public nature of our business and social media speculation that comes with it, but it’s really hard to engage or respond to fundamentally inaccurate social media or speculation to begin with. If the very premise is inaccurate, you’d kind always be chasing the internet. There was never any discussion between coach Grant and I about retirement. I’ll just leave it at that.
Q: Are you confident in the direction of the program with the coaches having to rebuild the roster this year?
A: Nothing’s changed from our perspective. We know the expectations that we all have and we’ll make the moves to get there. Like I said, sometimes the wind’s at your back. Sometimes you’re facing the headwinds. We’ve faced some headwinds the last two years, but we march on literally to March. That’s what we do. My belief in our goals, our aspirations, our expectations, just simply have not changed.
Q: What makes you confident in Anthony?
A: I think for all the reasons that we hired him. I am well aware that it is a results-based business, and we evaluate every facet of our program multiple times a year, constantly. It’s perpetual — from our coaching staff, to our support staff, to the most minute details of our operation. And as long as I believe that those things are aligned with our goals and aspirations, that’s where we keep our focus and don’t get distracted by much else.
Q: The A-10 received only one NCAA tournament bid this year. How do you look at the league as a whole? Is this a blip or a worrying trend?
A: I think it’s hard to draw too many trend lines. Obviously, the trend has been fewer (NCAA tournament bids) than more. I’ve been on record in saying that we need to have a healthier league from top to bottom so that your good wins are considered good wins and your losses are not considered bad losses. West Virginia’s in the NCAA tournament this year as a No. 9 seed and they’re 19-14. Iowa was 19-13. Michigan State was 19-12. Illinois was 3-11 against Quad One. So they had 13 Quad One games. The average A-10 team might have one or two.
At the end of the day, everyone just has to find a way. I think you’ve had a lot of things hit at once. Scheduling is becoming increasingly difficult for obvious reasons as other leagues expand the number of conference games that they play. You’ve got NIL. You’ve got the transfer portal. You’ve got coaching changes within the league. I forget the exact number of coaching changes we had last year, but it was not insignificant — maybe five or six. We’ve had two this year.
It’s a dynamic environment. It’s hard for me to speak for others and what they’ve got going on in their programs, but clearly, being in a results-based business, one bid for the A-10 is not good enough. So whatever the reasons are, it doesn’t really matter. As a league, we’ve got to figure it out and continue to adapt to the environment. I typically am not wanting to read too much into a one-year or a two-year trend but the scheduling aspect and instability of college sports, it’s definitely always on my mind and concerning.
Q: Do you expect the UD Arena sellout streak of 44 games to continue? Do you worry about fan frustration affecting attendance?
A: I worry about everything. You never can take a single fan for granted. You don’t take the person sitting in the front row or the person sitting in the very last row for grant. Our fans invest in us, and they fuel our team and fuel our operation. What they expect is a return on their investment. So each season-ticket holder makes their own judgment of how they want to do that. I wouldn’t speak for fans, but it doesn’t matter if we were coming off the 2020 year or we’re coming off a tough year, your customer and your fan, you can never take for granted, win or lose.
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