Winning is very hard in sports. That might seem obvious, but there are times when a reminder of that is needed. There are some places in the sports world where one can look and come away with the idea that it’s easy to do. In college basketball, we could look at the Arizona’s recent string of 25 consecutive trips to the NCAA Tournament that was snapped last season. It wasn’t long ago that Duke had a run of nine straight seasons reaching the Sweet 16 and five straight ACC titles. We could also look at the run Gonzaga has been on for the last decade and a half.
One might look at those examples and conclude that winning isn’t all that hard. But the reality is different, and while there are plenty of examples to demonstrate it, one place to look for further proof is UMBC. It was only three seasons ago that the Retrievers were in the NCAA Tournament as America East champions. They won a school-record 24 games and were the class of the conference all the way.
Since that time, the Retrievers have taken a precipitous drop. In 2008-09, they went 15-17 overall and 7-9 in America East, although they also had a win at Nebraska. Last season, the bottom fell out as they went 4-26, and this season hasn’t been any better as they are 3-19. Worse yet, 12 of the losses have been by double digits, including Sunday’s 80-60 shellacking at New Hampshire, and the three wins have a combined margin of nine points.
That hasn’t changed things for head coach Randy Monroe. Now in his seventh season at the helm, he will still light into his team on the bench in a tough love fashion, but there isn’t any doubt that he cares about his players. He’s still east-going and likeable off the court, and what the tough season and a half has done has strengthened his resolve.
“I don’t like the losing part, but it makes me more determined to get my program back to where it was,” said Monroe. “Every day, I’m fighting and pushing, and it’s not easy, but you know where your program was and you know where you want to get it to be.”
Monroe’s opposite number on Sunday, Bill Herrion, is a guy who has been there and done that. He’s been on both sides, including in this conference. At Drexel, Herrion won three consecutive conference championships from 1994 to 1996, and had five consecutive 20-win seasons during his eight-year tenure.
“It’s hard at our level,” said Herrion, now the head coach at New Hampshire. “It’s probably easier at the higher levels, because you could just get another McDonald’s All-American, you can go get another NBA guy. I think at our level, it’s hard to maintain.”
This edition of the Retrievers is a young group, and not surprisingly they’ve struggled to find their footing aside from junior Chris De La Rosa. Not only does he lead the team in scoring, but he’s handing out over six assists a game, which is pretty good considering only two other Retrievers average at least eight per night. He’s certainly doing what he can to get this team better, but he needs help. Monroe believes he has it on the bench, but there’s work to be done.
“I’m trying to find a level of consistency from four guys to help De La Rosa,” said Monroe. “That’s important. I haven’t quite found that yet. I think that’s a big key.”
Some of the young talent could develop into some good help for De La Rosa. Sophomore Adrian Satchell was an America East All-Rookie selection last season, and classmate Brian Neller has shown some promise. Freshman Jamar Wertz is a recent addition to the starting lineup, and Chase Plummer probably has the most potential of the freshmen as well.
Plummer started out his college career with three straight double figure scoring games, but hasn’t quite maintained that level of play. He’s being challenged by playing at a higher level and also the reality of losing games, as he played at powerhouse St. Patrick’s from New Jersey in high school and rarely lost. He’s a competitive player, but also knows the winning his high school team did isn’t magic.
Monroe is encouraged by some of what he sees from his team despite the win-loss record. He didn’t need the last season and a half to know that winning is hard; he’s been in the world of sports too long as a player and coach not to know. Most sports teams that have won have also had hard times along the way. Winning is hard to do, and no team has done it all the time. UMBC is no different, and Monroe is working to get them back to winning again.
