Retention as important as recruiting
Transfers a major concern at mid-majors
Projecting the future of any college sports team can turn into an unending cycle.
To have success, a team needs good players. The easiest route to good players is to recruit well. To recruit well, a team has to have some semblance of success on which to sell recruits.
The same is true for Duquesne basketball. An underlying story of this season, one in which the Dukes are in fairly good shape to win 20 games for the first time since 2010-11, is how it could be just the tip of the iceberg for progress within the program. If all goes according to plan, Duquesne will have its entire roster back next season, minus fifth-year senior center Baylee Steele.
Transfers, however, are a possibility, and an increasing reality in today’s college sports. Dukes coach Keith Dambrot knows this as well as anybody. After last season, five different Duquesne players transferred out of the program.
This affects how Dambrot coaches dayto-day, knowing that keeping his current players bought in to the program is just as important for the Dukes as recruiting new ones into the fold.
“That’s the biggest thing now,” Dambrot said. “Recruiting is important, but retention is even more important because eventually, you’ve got to play with juniors and seniors and older guys in order to win at this level.”
Adding to all of this, the Big Ten recently proposed legislation that would allow all athletes a one-time transfer, where they would not have to sit out a year, as opposed to the current rule, which requires players of certain sports to apply for a waiver if they want to play right away.
For many, this is seen as a good thing for players’ benefits. If they go on and have success somewhere else, their stock rises and they make some money playing professionally because of it, that’s a good thing.
Dambrot and other coaches at mid-major schools, though, are caught in a unique situation. Players see other players transfer to bigger schools and have success, and they want to do the same. If a team has success, then their best player leaves after a year and results worsen, the coach doesn’t
“Recruiting is important, but retention is even more important because eventually, you’ve got to play with juniors and seniors and older guys in order to win at this level.”
— Duquesne coach Keith Dambrot
always get a free pass.
“They all look now at the end of the year anyway,” Dambrot said. “You don’t think that everybody’s looking when [former St. Joseph’s guard Lamarr “Fresh” Kimble] is starting for Louisville and [former Massachusetts guard Luwane Pipkins] is starting for Providence and [former Duquesne wing Eric Williams Jr.] goes to Oregon. They all look now, because they say, ‘Well, if he can do it. I can do it.’ And then with the easiness of the transferring now with the portal, and you don’t have to go to the coach first, and then if [the Big Ten proposal] becomes a rule, then hey, man.”
For all of this talk, Dambrot does still understand the perspective of the players, and he doesn’t blame them. His own son, Robby Dambrot, played soccer at Akron before transferring to Pittsburgh in 2017 for his junior and senior seasons. In soccer, there is no waiver, and it likely wasn’t a coincidence that Robby’s move coincided with Keith moving from Akron to take the Duquesne job himself. So there are some extenuating circumstances but still, Keith credited Robby’s move to the improved facilities and coaching the Panthers have.
So he’s not blind to the benefits these transfer rules have for players. At the same time, he is more than aware of the consequences they could have for a program like Duquesne’s.