The University of Akron Athletics
Dambrot MAC Media Teleconference Quotes and Audio
January 25 | Men's Basketball
Below is the transcript of Akron men's basketball head coach
Keith
Dambrot's discussion with the media on Thursday's Mid-American
Conference teleconference. The Zips (13-6, 3-2 MAC) play at Western
Michigan (11-7, 3-2 MAC) on Wednesday at 7 p.m. ET, and open a
three-game homestand on Saturday when Toledo (3-16, 0-5 MAC) visits
Rhodes Arena for a 7 p.m. contest.
Opening Statement:
"I think right now it's the typical East (Division), you know we've
been beating each other up and everybody's having a hard time on
the road for the most part. Everybody's competitive and pretty much
the same. I also think that there's great improvement in the West
(Division) and they're going to be very, very competitive. I think
the league is much more competitive overall than it has been in
recent years."
On Miami Coach Charlie Coles recently becoming the league's
winningest coach in MAC play:
"I have tremendous respect for coach (Charlie) Coles and our paths
have crossed a tremendous amount of times, we were both coaching at
Central Michigan, as you know. He's a great man, he has tremendous
passion for the game and his players love him, and he is extremely
knowledgeable about the game. It's just a real tribute to him
because he's overcome a lot of adversity-both physical and
career-wise, so you have to just have the utmost respect for a man
like him."
On his team's upcoming schedule:
"It's an important stretch for everybody obviously, with the West
(Division) also. I think the places in the West (Division), which
are hard to play like Western Michigan, Ball State, Central
Michigan. I've always said that I don't think there's much
difference between the West and the East because it comes down to
who's playing well when it matters. It's a tough stretch for us
because we're trying to get through the West, but once we get past
Western Michigan we've got three home games, so we're looking
forward to that."
On the starting lineup:
"We would prefer to have the same lineup, but by the same token
when you have as many equal guys as us, we believe you earn it in
practice and you earn it with consistency. I'd say that right now
we have two guys who we think have earned a starting spot by
working on a consistent basis and they are Jimmy Conyers and Steve
McNees. The rest are pretty much up in the air. We're very
please with where our freshman Zeke Marshall is, he's not
ready to win championships with yet, but he's certainly getting
better and better every day. That being said, the rest have to
battle and when you talk about (Anthony) "Humpty" Hitchens or Darryl
Roberts, Nikola Cvetinovic, Chris
McKnight or Brett McKnight, or even Mike
Bardo they're pretty much the same, but they give you different
things. We're just looking for one of those guys to step up and
take a spot just like the other two have."
On Western Michigan:
"All you have to do is know the history and know what they've done
this year, they've only lost one game in their building (8-1) and
that loss was to Temple, who was a top-25 team at the time and it
was still a pretty close game. They beat VCU who is one of the best
mid-majors in the country. They're tough as nails in that building,
they're hard-nosed, they're one of the best rebounding teams in the
league and they have one of the best players, if not the best
player in the league and they've got a very experienced coach.
We've got our hands full, the schedule wasn't great for us early
but it always turns out right. We have to go in there and figure
out a way to win, we'll need to play more consistently, we have to
handle adversity better and we have to show tremendous toughness to
win in that building."
