Nobody is looking forward to the 2010-11 college basketball season officially ending more than Ernie Zeigler.
The fifth-year men’s basketball coach at Central Michigan had a season he would like to move past from as the Chippewas went just 10-21, which was the worst record Zeigler has posted in his five seasons at CMU.
Despite high expectations coming into the season with the addition of his son Trey, a nationally-ranked recruit, the Chippewas’ season was filled with struggles, breakdowns, and more roster turmoil.
Now, with the Final Four set for this weekend and the CMU season being completed for a few weeks now, Zeigler took time to sit down with myself to discuss the season, where the program is headed, and the lack of consistency with the roster over his time in Mt. Pleasant.
Drew Ellis: Now that a few weeks have past, what stands out to you about last season?
Ernie Zeiger: The first word that comes to mind is disappointment. I, and I think everyone in our program, was disappointed with the way the season went. I know we had our own expectations of having a winning season and a lot of things come into play with that in how much you can win, in terms of competing for championships, and how little you can win, and we fell on the other side of the pendulum.
What I have tried to do over the last couple of weeks is really analyze every aspect of our program and this past season and the one thing that comes out at you is, the expectations were probably a little bit too high. When you look at the fact that we had nine newcomers come into our program. We had five kids returning, well six, but (Zach) Saylor was out hurt. We had five kids returning, and only one of those players (Antonio Weary) had two years or more of Division I experience.
When you couple those things together and you know you need guys to mature in different roles right away, with the returning guys maturing into leadership roles and the newcomers maturing much faster into the rotation, those things put together did not happen and the end result was us having the worst season we have had since I have been head coach here.
Ellis: Can you talk about that a little bit from your perspective because you had continued to take small steps forward toward a winning season coming into this season. Did you put too much pressure on yourself to have a winning season?
Zeigler: I don’t think I put any more pressure on myself than I did the first year. The pressure is always there. I know we have a lot of avid followers and fans and supporters and I love the fact that we do, but there is nobody that puts more pressure on Ernie Zeigler than Ernie Zeigler. The goal for me ever year is to push this program to another level.
When you look at coaching at the college level, and I think any coach will tell you this, there is a very delicate balance of being able to be successful and everyone love you to not being successful and having to look for another job. That pressure has been there since I became the head coach five years ago.
When you take over a program like ours and you look at the history of our program since we joined the MAC, since that time in 1972-73 there has only been two coaches, Dick Parfitt and Charlie Coles, who have had consecutive .500 seasons or better in MAC play. We are talking about over 30 years of basketball and there have been two coaches that have had that level of success. Parfitt had five years from the 72-73 season through the 78-79 season while Coles had two in the 86-88 seasons. Since I have been here we have never finished worse than third in the division as well, and if you look back at our history, that is something that hasn’t been done a lot. Central Michigan has been at the bottom of the MAC a number of seasons since we joined the conference.
I like to have an understanding of the lay of the land. I have been fortunate to work with some really good coaches that have helped me understand how you have to look at and keep in relativity where you are and what you are trying to do. For us, a lot of times everyone wants us to win and I know that having 10 wins is not something to be excited about. By no shape or form am I satisfied with 10 wins. But, when you keep it relative to the history of our program since we began Mid-American Conference play, there have only been two other coaches that have had 10 or more wins in their first five seasons as head coach and now I am the third. Am I blowing whistles and wanting a parade? No. But, at the same time, I do feel like there has been a foundation set.
When we took over here, I compared it to taking over a 2,000-piece puzzle. All of the pieces were all over the place. At the end of the first five years here, even as disappointing as this season was, I do feel good about the foundation being set. We have the frame of that puzzle in place and now we are putting together the inside pieces. That is where our program is right now and I do feel good about that. We have set the foundation and we do have a good nucleus of guys and now it is about putting those final pieces together to try and have a sustained winning program that competes for championships year-in and year-out and that is a difficult thing to do.
The next step for this program is to win and the pressure to do that is not coming anywhere else but from Ernie Zeigler. We have put ourselves in position where we have established a sustained level of competitiveness and respect within our conference that we are not the bottom rung, which is where we were five seasons ago. Now we are working our way higher up the ladder to get to the top.
Ellis: I was going to ask later about the challenges you faced taking over this program, but I guess you touched on that pretty well. Is there anything you want to add to that?
Zeigler: I think a lot of times you have to inform or re-inform the people that follow our program and I worked at an extremely tradition-rich program at UCLA and the expectations there are Final Four or bust. The flipside there is you always have to keep it relative to your tradition and where you are as a program and I truly feel like we have made some strides and at the same time I am very aware that this season was not indicative to the forward progress we had been making in the four season prior. I know that falls on my shoulder and I am not running from it and there is no doubt in my mind that I will make sure we continue to move forward and fill in the rest of the pieces to this puzzle.
Ellis: A couple of things that stand out to me this season in terms of what hampered success was the lack of transition play despite the fact that you expected that to be a strength this season, and losing a number of second-half leads. Can you touch on those two things and why you feel they didn’t work out?
Zeigler: I think our struggles with our transition offense was a direct result of the inconsistencies we had with our point guard play. We talked about wanting to get out and run coming into this season but we really struggled with understanding how to carry over what we worked on on a daily basis and it got to a point where we were still working on it in every practice, even late in the season, on how to push the ball and attack in transition.
When we did have those opportunities where we were successful, it opened things up for us. Part of that stagnant play we had with our running game you can partly attribute to how we started the season. I think part of our struggles stem from playing nine of our first 10 games on the road and having an inexperienced team and then having most of our games comes down to one possession in the final moments. It really affected our confidence and having those close games and losing those tough games on the road really tested our confidence. Now, this season was different because of the building of McGuirk Arena, which will be a huge positive for this program going forward, but that opening stretch on the road really was a test for this young team. The games with Hawaii, South Alabama, and Montana State were three games that really could have changed our entire season but because of the way they finished, it just took away from different guys being more confident in their role as a leader or more confident in their role within the rotation because of mistakes made in those games, and we just became snake-bitten because of it. But, that again falls on me to keep that from happening.
Those confidence issues also parlayed into how we played with leads and it still became an issue of leadership. I can go through each game that we lost where we had a second-half lead and point to a time where we go too relaxed and that was a point where you are looking for an upper classman to step up and be a leader and carry us through those times and we just didn’t have someone with that experience and leadership to do that and it really defined itself in the game against Ball State where we just totally lost our composure and that comes from a lack of poise or having someone that can distribute poise.
Ellis: Looking back, some of your best wins while here have been games where you come from behind, do you think that this year your team struggled with the mindset of being in the lead because they are accustomed to being in an underdog role and bringing the fight to the opponent rather than the opponent bringing the fight to you?
Zeigler: There could be something there in terms of relaxing and not scrapping and fighting with the lead but I think a lot of it just comes down to execution.
I know a lot of criticism of me is about people feeling that I struggle with making in-game decisions and adjustments. But, if someone is really, really paying attention to details and distinctively watching, they will see that we change things after each time out. We change how we guard ball screens, we change on whether we will help off of someone if we weren’t helping off of someone, or switching to zone defense. Whatever it is we decide to do, someone ultimately has to go on the floor and carry that out. When you have so many new guys, I think the complacency from having the mindset of we are winning so we can relax and not have the same focus or intensity is what hurt us. It goes back to the lack of poise and leadership on the floor, especially in those situations where another team was coming at us hard. It was a hole we couldn’t overcome.
Ellis: Some feel that your excuse of youth and inexperience isn’t as valid because you have been here for five years and have control of the roster and have had a lot of roster turnover during your time here. How do you respond to that?
Zeigler: When you look at college basketball as a whole, over the two seasons before this previous one, there have been over 420 transfers in Division I basketball and when I look at our program, there is no question that there are guys that have come into this program where one of three things have happened. Either me and my staff made the choice that they weren’t ultimately the right fit for this program or the right guy from a character stand point or they just simply weren’t good enough and they were a bad evaluation by myself and the coaching staff. That is part of our business and it is no different than an employer from Hewlett-Packard bringing in a new guy and then seeing that they didn’t work out a few months later. That stuff happens. Ultimately, that is my responsibility. I don’t run from it, but what I am not going to do is not keep trying to fix it.
I will say that the kids that have been in the program, and I want to speak on Marko Spica, because he was one of the first guy to join our first freshman class, is that Marko graduated from here. We had Jordan Bitzer and Robbie Harman already on board but Marko was a guy that we brought in and he graduated, yes with a year of eligibility left, but also at 24-years-old. Marko was ready to get on with his life and that was a mutual thing for both sides. Marko left here with a degree and is now playing professional basketball.
In terms of the roster turnover, I will say this, we have had 16 seniors including the four seniors from this past season, I have had 16 seniors that have come through this program and at the end of this summer, 13 of those 16 will leave CMU with their degree. Ultimately, that is my responsibility.
Now, those guys that left during their freshman year or sophomore year, I just look at it as the nature of the business. It is like the line from the “Godfather” where he says “This is the business we have chosen.” This is the business I have chosen.
Transfers are also going to be part of this. In our league this year, there were 43 transfers from either another Division I or junior-college program on our rosters. You are always going to be looking to change your roster for the better.
In my first year, you take over a program and guys are going to leave. In the second year, we had some guys that we took some chances on where this was their third school, and I don’t want to go through names, but they should have been high-profile guys for us. But, chemistry didn’t work out and they hurt that particular team, which was the most talented team from top to bottom that we had here since I have been here.
Then, you have some guys make mistakes. As college coaches, yes we are responsible, and when a guy makes a bad decision off the court, we have to make a disciplinary decision. We have had a couple of those of the years.
When you look at my third year, everything that could go wrong did go wrong to keep that team from having a winning record overall. You had one guy that was the heart and soul of building this foundation, miss the first semester because he had some issues away from the court. He is going to end up graduating here in the next few months. Then you lose another guy to disciplinary issues that you had to suspend for multiple games. Then you have Marko and Chris (Kellermann) both go out with injuries. You have four of your top eight guys in your rotation not available to start the season and miss a significant amount of the season altogether. That is just how fine of a line it is between having a winning season to not having a winning season.
My fourth year we made a step forward but we didn’t feel like we did what we wanted to do because we didn’t have an overall winning record. We were .500. We wanted to be better. Even that team, we had some issues with the roster and guys making mistakes. In the end, that is basketball.
I look at Michigan State and they have had two guys leave during the season. Guys are going to leave and it is just part of college basketball. There is going to be attrition and you just have to push forward.
When you look at this past season, and we didn’t have any four-year seniors, we would have had two guys that would have been four-year seniors that have left and that is Chase Simon and Jeremy Allen. Those were two kids that could score and we really struggled to score this season. But, for different reasons, it didn’t work out. I am really proud of both those kids though and Chase came up to me after the Detroit game this year and told me that he understands what I was trying to get through to him now. Here is a kid that is set to graduate in the spring from Detroit and he finally gets it and understands what it takes to be a successful college basketball player. That is just part of it. It is tough but you just have to keep plugging and pushing to be successful.
Ellis: When you think about some of the young guys that have left the program, do you think that you are a tough coach to play for?
Zeigler: I don’t think I am any tougher to play for than any of the situations I have been part of. I think young guys in general, and look at our freshmen this year, it was tough for them to start to conform with the level of discipline and the level of accountability that I demand of them.
When you look at different situations from year one to now, I would say that I have probably mellowed some with certain aspects or demands that you have of guys. Like I tell our guys all the time, the tough things that you go through only make you stronger and you learn from them.
I consider myself a player’s coach and I think guys that make it through this program feel the exact same way. I don’t think there is a guy that has played here for me that doesn’t think that I don’t care for them. I care about them and I care about them becoming a successful man and I know they know that and that is what I feel good about when I look at myself in the mirror everyday.
Ellis: You talked about senior leadership and point guard play, is there anything you can add to Amir Rashid leaving during the season? He was a senior point guard that had a small time left in his playing career here and he left. How surprising was it that he chose to leave at that point?
Zeigler: It was a blow for us. It was unfortunate that at that time he made the decision that he made. At that time we supported him and at this time we support him. I am going to be meeting with him individually as well as all our seniors to talk about how we help these guys take the next step in their lives. Amir is going to graduate here by the end of the summer.
It is just unfortunate. I think for him and for us it was probably the final dagger for us, even though going into the final stretch we still had a chance to put ourselves in position to get a share of the division title. Losing him at that time definitely hurt our team because he is a part of our family.
I think people hear things and this, that, and the other, but every kid in our program, including Amir will tell you that we all go through tough times and just like any family kids and their parents get upset with each other and don’t want to speak to each other for a day or two at times. You get mad at your siblings and your family members but what makes you a family is that you end up sitting down and talking and you continue to move forward and that is how I look at it and how we are going to continue to move forward as a program from it.
Ellis: Have you altered the way you have recruited over your last five years here due to some of the problems you have had with guys leaving the program?
Zeigler: You definitely get a better feel for where you are. I will say this about us at Central Michigan, this is a great university and I am really privileged to work for the best president and athletics director in our conference, but from a recruiting standpoint our situation is unique compared to the teams we have to recruit against in our conference.
There are built in advantages in terms of an admissions standpoint, I mean we recruited the heck out of a kid that was right down the road at Mott Community College that we spent a lot of time on and he is in our league right now and doesn’t get off the bench on the team that he went to. They were able to get him in their school.
We have definitely had to change and identify who is a fit for CMU because CMU is a very special and unique situation. I tell recruits that we pride ourselves on being the Harvard of the MAC, so you have to be able to be ready to compete academically when you come here. We have definitely had to change our recruiting since we first came. We wanted to hit certain areas when we got here and the state of Michigan is certainly our number one source for our recruiting, but at the same time since signing the new contract, we have been able to do some things creatively that has allowed us to have more resources.
We have a third guaranteed game now. This year was the first year we did that and it helps us in order to get out and recruit nationally and make some things aesthetically better for the staff and what have you. Those are things we have to do that teams we aspire to beat in our league that other programs don’t have to do. It is something we understand and part of being successful is understanding who you are and what you have to work with and how you maneuver to make that happen for you.
Ellis: Can you talk about coaching your son, Trey, this season and how handled the struggled the team had because he is not really accustomed to not having team success?
Zeigler: I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything. I think it definitely had its ups and downs to say the least. Trey went through his struggles of understanding.
I think a lot of times from the outside looking in, people look at him and sometimes think he is aloof or that it isn’t that important to him. One of the things that he has found and understood and started to mature with is understanding how much more focused he has to be. Because he has a vast amount of ability athletically and from a skill standpoint, there is much more expected of him.
When he started to accept having a better sense of purpose on a daily basis in practice and in film sessions and those things, he started to have some consistency on the floor, particularly during that good stretch we had in conference play.
He definitely had his challenges and I think it is getting better. At the end of the day, he is starting to understand those challenges and he is starting to evolve with the next step of the maturation process in our program.
Ellis: Do you think this time of year is hard for him or even for you as he sees the teams he passed up playing in the NCAA Tournament?
Zeigler: I don’t know from Trey’s perspective but when I was out recruiting last week and got back to the hotel room, I turned on the television and watched UCLA and Michigan State play. For me, as a parent, I sat there and thought ‘wow, Trey could be in a UCLA uniform right now or a Michigan State uniform.’
At the end of the day, Trey chose CMU. He is where he wants to be. He is where I want him to be and the goal and the pressure that I am going to have on myself is no different now than it was in year one when I was trying to get Sefton Barrett into the NCAA Tournament or year two when I was trying to get Giordan Watson into the tournament to year three when I was trying to get Marcus Van in to last season with Harman and Bitzer and Kellermann to this season with Jalin, Amir, Will, and Antonio. That is always going to be the goal, to play in the NCAA Tournament and any coach that is worth his salt is going to be pushing for that. That is our ultimate goal and hopefully that will happen sooner than later.
Ellis: You have talked about wanting to take the team to a level of competitiveness when you first got here. Now that you have established a certain level with the program, how do you take it to a championship level?
Zeigler: The next step for us, and I have talked to our team about this, is trust. There has to be a better level of trust in our system and believing in what we are trying to do.
We need to trust and believe in who we are and what we do. For us to take the next step, there has to be a level of trust within the whole program.
We have a great nucleus of young kids and I am really excited about them. Nate VanArendonk missed the whole season with mono and you have Colin Voss and Jevon Harden and Trey and Derek Jackson all back after their first year. You have Andre Coimbra, who will be a senior for us, has shown flashes of good things. I am really excited about all of the guys coming back and for us, there is no doubt we have to positively nurture and develop that young group.
I think Jackson showed that he can be a consistent scorer and Trey has got to evolve and make better decisions with the basketball and have a positive assist-to-turnover-ratio and continue to get bigger and stronger and finish through contact around the basket.
Evolving that nucleus is big and the other key is going out and getting the right pieces to the puzzle because in order for us to take the next step, we have to get better offensively. When you look at us this year, we shot 38 percent from the field and 65 percent from the free-throw line and we averaged less than 10 assists per game. All those things add up and you can’t get assists if you can’t make baskets on the passes that lead to open shots. We have to get better at making open shots.
When you look at our starting lineup, a lot of times we had five guys on the floor that were shooting less than 40 percent from the floor. We had some guys that were shooting less than 35 percent. When you go through the numbers and stats from our guys this year, it is mind boggling. Especially when you look at the fact that we lost a number of close games that came down to one possession here and one possession there. If we just hit some of those open shots or layups, we might have been able to contend to be a .500 team.
What also ended up happening when we weren’t hitting shots is it put so much pressure on us defensively that we just bogged down. We have to get better defensively as well, but we need to add some pieces in the spring that can score at their position. That doesn’t mean we need guys that can come in and score 25 points per game, but we need the reputation of having a lot of guys that can score at their position. I think that will be a key element for us to take the next step next season.
You can only compare yourself to your peers. What stands out in my mind is that last loss we had to Western here at home. Western Michigan comes in with their best player suspended and their leading scorer has two points in the game and they still beat us by 13 and had four guys score in double figures.
When we evaluated the season and talked about what we need to do to get better, we need to have six or seven guys that are capable of scoring double figures. If you have that type of balance and you are going to prepare and be solid defensively like we are going to be, it is going to propel us and take us to the next level and fill in those key pieces to the puzzle that we haven’t yet filled in.
Ellis: Will there be any changes to the team in either the coaching staff or the roster for next season?
Zeigler: That is yet to be determined. Right now the big focus for us is the spring workouts and trying to improve and get our guys stronger in the weight room.
I am evaluating our entire program daily and part of that is always looking for how we get better and because there is so much turnover in terms of coaching staffs this time of year, that opens the door for opportunities for guys this time of year. You are always cognizant of having to be able to move forward if someone is blessed with a career opportunity for themselves. Right now everything is status quo and we are just focusing on getting this nucleus that is the foundation of our program to move forward.
Ellis: If you could take yourself present day and have a conversation with the Ernie Zeigler that came into this office for his first day of work, what advice would you give him?
Zeigler: (laughs) I would tell him to strap in buckle up tight. It is going to be a bumpy road and that is exactly what it has been.
I can only go back to my analogy of that 2,000-piece puzzle and if I had to go back I would tell myself to take your time and place one piece at a time.
