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I haven't followed this year at all for Buffalo & Donyell, but decided to do a little research after seeing his name brought up in the Miller thread, and came upon this article.
UB assistant and former NBA standout Donyell Marshall has ‘the answer’
The whole thing is worth reading, but here are a couple of excerpts for the lazy:
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Marshall started thinking seriously about coaching over the last five years of his playing career, which ended in 2009. He spent summers over that span coaching an AAU youth team that he owned.
“Coaching the AAU team, I saw the connection I had with kids,” Marshall said. “Basketball is about X’s and O’s. But I also think if you can get the kids to play hard for you, and respect you, and if they know you love them, they’ll run through a wall for you. I think I was able to do that with my AAU team, and I felt like I could be good at this.”
He dove right in. UConn alumnus Karl Hobbs was head coach at George Washington and hired Marshall as an assistant in 2010.
“I remember one day at GW, one of our big guys was walking on campus, slumping along, and we were standing there watching,” Hobbs said. “And I recall Donyell telling him, ‘Hey, hey, walk like a big man! Stick your chest out. Pick your head up. You’re a big guy.’ I would have never thought to say that to a big guy. That was an aha moment to me. It was a little thing but it was a big thing.
“I watched him work with our big guys, how he was able to connect with them and teach them all the fundamentals of the game,” Hobbs said. “My players always wanted to be around Donyell. They would come by his apartment. As a head coach you love that because relationships and knowing what these kids are thinking is 80 percent of the coaching.”
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Oats takes full advantage of Marshall’s experience. Marshall is responsible for coaching the big men. But he also works with perimeter shooters on the side.
“He’s kind of like the big man-slash-shooting coach,” Oats said. “It’s good for the guys. He played in the league, and he’s humble. He wants to give back.”
“He brought us to his house before the Kent State game,” said UB guard Jarryn Skeete. “And we got to see he’s got every UConn player jersey signed, every top player he played with signed − LeBron, Kobe, Steve Nash, Gilbert Arenas. He’s got a UConn pool table, UConn flooring in his basement. … He’s actually a really cool dude. He’s super down to earth.”
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And here are a few other things I've been able to dig up with some very cursory searches about Buffalo's season:
- They lost their top 3 and 5 of their top 8 rotation players from last year's 23-10 team that made the NCAA's under Bobby Hurley. New coach is Nate Oats, who has them at a respectable 17-14 and 3rd in the Mid-Atlantic
- They were 60th in Kenpom last year, 155th this year.
- Their current roster is waaaaay undersized, with only one player (reserve freshman Ikenna Smart) taller than 6-foot-8. Smart's minutes seem to be limited by foul trouble rather than productivity
- Buffalo's incoming recruiting class is, by their standards, outstanding. It's led by big (6-foot-11, 250 lbs) 3-star center Brock Bertram and springy (6-foot-8, 210 lbs) 3-star PF Quate McKinzie, both of whom signed in the fall after Donyell's arrival (it's not clear if that was a factor). They are also considered favorites for 3-star PG Jalen Harris. I went back 10 years, and never in the program's history have they signed more than one 3-star recruit
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It's nice to see Donyell doing well. I'm not one who thinks the staff needs a shake-up, but if one comes in the next couple of years, hopefully Donyell will have had so much success by then that he becomes the obvious hire.
UB assistant and former NBA standout Donyell Marshall has ‘the answer’
The whole thing is worth reading, but here are a couple of excerpts for the lazy:
----
Marshall started thinking seriously about coaching over the last five years of his playing career, which ended in 2009. He spent summers over that span coaching an AAU youth team that he owned.
“Coaching the AAU team, I saw the connection I had with kids,” Marshall said. “Basketball is about X’s and O’s. But I also think if you can get the kids to play hard for you, and respect you, and if they know you love them, they’ll run through a wall for you. I think I was able to do that with my AAU team, and I felt like I could be good at this.”
He dove right in. UConn alumnus Karl Hobbs was head coach at George Washington and hired Marshall as an assistant in 2010.
“I remember one day at GW, one of our big guys was walking on campus, slumping along, and we were standing there watching,” Hobbs said. “And I recall Donyell telling him, ‘Hey, hey, walk like a big man! Stick your chest out. Pick your head up. You’re a big guy.’ I would have never thought to say that to a big guy. That was an aha moment to me. It was a little thing but it was a big thing.
“I watched him work with our big guys, how he was able to connect with them and teach them all the fundamentals of the game,” Hobbs said. “My players always wanted to be around Donyell. They would come by his apartment. As a head coach you love that because relationships and knowing what these kids are thinking is 80 percent of the coaching.”
----
Oats takes full advantage of Marshall’s experience. Marshall is responsible for coaching the big men. But he also works with perimeter shooters on the side.
“He’s kind of like the big man-slash-shooting coach,” Oats said. “It’s good for the guys. He played in the league, and he’s humble. He wants to give back.”
“He brought us to his house before the Kent State game,” said UB guard Jarryn Skeete. “And we got to see he’s got every UConn player jersey signed, every top player he played with signed − LeBron, Kobe, Steve Nash, Gilbert Arenas. He’s got a UConn pool table, UConn flooring in his basement. … He’s actually a really cool dude. He’s super down to earth.”
----
And here are a few other things I've been able to dig up with some very cursory searches about Buffalo's season:
- They lost their top 3 and 5 of their top 8 rotation players from last year's 23-10 team that made the NCAA's under Bobby Hurley. New coach is Nate Oats, who has them at a respectable 17-14 and 3rd in the Mid-Atlantic
- They were 60th in Kenpom last year, 155th this year.
- Their current roster is waaaaay undersized, with only one player (reserve freshman Ikenna Smart) taller than 6-foot-8. Smart's minutes seem to be limited by foul trouble rather than productivity
- Buffalo's incoming recruiting class is, by their standards, outstanding. It's led by big (6-foot-11, 250 lbs) 3-star center Brock Bertram and springy (6-foot-8, 210 lbs) 3-star PF Quate McKinzie, both of whom signed in the fall after Donyell's arrival (it's not clear if that was a factor). They are also considered favorites for 3-star PG Jalen Harris. I went back 10 years, and never in the program's history have they signed more than one 3-star recruit
----
It's nice to see Donyell doing well. I'm not one who thinks the staff needs a shake-up, but if one comes in the next couple of years, hopefully Donyell will have had so much success by then that he becomes the obvious hire.
